How many times did I have to explain to clients that Wi-Fi does not have a negative impact on our health? The last time was last week. The situation, as always, starts with the question:
Can’t we move this access point further, preferably behind the wall?
If you have a similar concern, or you yourself are worried about the impact of Wi-Fi on your health, I hasten to explain
First, let’s check the signal strength from my access point (I’m sitting almost directly under it).
Our value is -40 dBm. What does this even mean? Let’s refer to the definition from Wikipedia:
Power expressed in dBm indicates how many decibels the power is greater or smaller than 1 mW
Decibel is a logarithmic unit of measure denoted by the symbol dB. It is used when comparing quantities that change linearly over a very wide range. It’s perfectly suited for describing changes in signal strength in wireless networks.
Meanwhile, W (Watt) is a unit of power.
Great, we’re getting closer. Now, a bit of math. Seriously, there will be some.
If a value (regardless of what it is) increases by 10dB, it means it’s 10 times greater than the initial value. It works similarly in the opposite direction. If a value decreases by 10dB (-10dB), it means it’s 10 times smaller than the initial value.
Our value can now be written as follows:
-40dBm = 0,0001 mW = 0,0000001 W
-40 dB is nothing else but a value that is: 10*10*10*10 = 10000 (in words: ten thousand times smaller) than 1mW.
Is that a little or a lot?
Now let’s relate this value to other sources of radiation.
Radio waves emitted by GSM phones reach peak powers of up to 2 watts, while for American analog phones they reach up to 3.6 watts. Other digital mobile technologies, such as CDMA and TDMA, have lower power consumption, usually below 1 W. Source: wikipedia.org.
Another good example is our beautiful Sun or otherwise known as solar radiation. A larger amount of energy reaches us on sunny days, and a different amount on cloudy days. Accordingly, it can be from 1000W/m2 to 50W/m2. Leaving the values aside, let’s think about what happens when we go out in the “sun” in the summer on a cloudless day and spend some time enjoying the beautiful weather? That’s right, a beautiful tan appears on our skin.
I hope the above two examples have shown you that we can sleep peacefully at night with Wi-Fi running.
Summary
Wi-Fi is great, it’s not harmful to health, let’s use it without any worries.
