Cell Phone Towers and Antennas

Cell phone towers are the base stations for cell phones and host  cell phone antennas, which act as transmitters and receivers.  Antennas receive signals from cell phones and are linked with wireless and wired networks which route calls from one location to another.  These networks are connected to local telephone companies, enabling wireless calls to be received and sent to conventional phones.

The number of cell phone tower and antennas in the United States has skyrocketed in almost a decade from 95,733 in June 2000 to 298,055 cell sites in December 2014, according to CTIA - the Wireless Association. If you observe one cell tower, the combined power output of multiple antennas on a tower increases accordingly.  A typical suburban community can have 50 individual antennas and 12 cell phone towers in a 4-mile radius. You can identify the number of cell phone towers and antennas near your home and work by going to www.antennasearch.com.

    

In addition to free standing towers, cell towers are on hospitals and disguised as trees, gas station signs, or church steeples. Cell phone antennas are mounted on locations such as water tanks, office buildings, home rooftops, churches, apartment buildings, camping and hunting sites, boats, cars, utility poles, grain silos, and flagpoles.

Some cities are building city-wide Wi-Fi service to enable anyone on the street to remotely access the internet.  Wi-Fi signals travel a few hundred feet while WiMAX installations transmit stronger signals as much as 10 miles.  Therefore, people near WiMAX are exposed to a stronger continuous radiofrequency radiation emission.

Section 704 of the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996’s preempts consideration of the health and environmental effects of radio-frequency radiation at levels below current Federal Communication Commission standards in decisions involving the placement, construction and modification of wireless facilities.

Living Near Cell Towers

 

 

 
 

A woman living in Canada and her experience two months after cell phone antennas were installed on top of her apartment building in December 2009.

 
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