Monday, January 6, 2020

User's concerned about radiation exposure from your Wi-FI AP?

Every few years I get a concern from a user or 2 about radiation concerns from a Wi-Fi AP.  Often it is a user that has heard "something" about radio signals may cause health issues.  This often leads me down discussion path of "ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation" and comparing things to visible light vs. x-rays and on and on.  But people often will believe what they want to believe and there is no vendor on earth that will or can declare their technology as "healthy".

After talking with some other network engineers and reviewing other documents I decided this is how to respond to these concerns.

Use the work already done by the regulatory bodies like the FCC and other agencies!

In our network we use Cisco AP's.  Cisco AP's have an installation guide or often a quick guide to help get you started.  Towards the bottom of these documents there is always a lot of legal and regulatory items I usually pay little attention.  In these guides there is a section on "Declaration of Conformity for RF Exposure".

This section gives you the guidelines form installation to make sure this device conforms to RF exposure requirement:

I also provide a chart that compares exposure to your Cell Phone vs. Wi-Fi to show that the Cell Phone has a much higher output then the Wi-Fi devices.





Using this information I confirm the devices meet and are installed to comply with these guidelines and if there are any other concerns please have them contact their supervisor and workplace safety.