Do smart meters generate radio frequency (RF) fields?
Yes. Smart meters emit about 1 watt. This is less than the 1 to 2 watts emitted by cell phones or wireless routers. Smart meters transmit radio signals only once every four hours with each transmission lasting only 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds or 5/100ths of one second). Due to the low power of each meter, and the need for each smart meter to create a network to function, each smart meter may acts as a “repeater” (part of the communication chain) for adjacent meters. However, they do so only 2 percent of the time on average. Dedicated pole-top repeaters are also used to carry signals from smart meters. Pole mounted network access points in neighborhoods communicate with smart meters less than a total of 24 minutes a day or for four minutes during each 4 hour period. This equipment is usually located well above ground level on light poles, utility poles or on other infrastructure.
Yes. Smart meters emit about 1 watt. This is less than the 1 to 2 watts emitted by cell phones or wireless routers. Smart meters transmit radio signals only once every four hours with each transmission lasting only 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds or 5/100ths of one second). Due to the low power of each meter and the need for each smart meter to create a network in order to function, each smart meter may acts as a “repeater” (part of the communication chain) for adjacent meters. There are several other reasons that smart meters may communicate throughout the day, including the reporting of outages, voltage sags or swells, alerts about power thefts and tampering, and on-demand reads done at customers’ requests to answer their questions. However, these communications are infrequent and of very short duration.
