Exposure of the general public due to wireless LAN applications in public places

The typical exposure caused by wireless LAN applications in public areas has been investigated in a variety of scenarios. Small-sized (internet cafe) and large-scale (airport) indoor scenarios as well as outdoor scenarios in the environment of access points (AP) supplying for residential areas and public places were considered. The exposure assessment was carried out by numerical GTD/UTD computations based on optical wave propagation, as well as by verifying frequency selective measurements in the considered scenarios under real life conditions. In the small-sized indoor scenario the maximum temporal peak values of power density, spatially averaged over body dimensions, were found to be lower than 20 mW/m2, corresponding to 0.2% of the reference level according to the European Council Recommendation 1999/519/EC. Local peak values of power density might be 1-2 orders of magnitude higher, spatial and time-averaged values for usual data traffic conditions might be 2-3 orders of magnitude lower, depending on the actual data traffic. In the considered outdoor scenarios, exposure was several orders of magnitude lower than in indoor scenarios due to the usually larger distances to the AP antennas. (authors)