Investigating the Received Signal Strength and Electromagnetic Radiation from 2G, 3G and 4G Mobile Architectures

Abstract

Most mobile phone service providers currently provide 2G, 3G, 4G
and recently 5G services to their customers. The advancement of the
Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) from 2G to 4G, has
improved numerous performance problems inherent in the
communication channel of the network. Although, the motivation of
this paper was to investigate two important factors that affect
performance namely: Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and
Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) in different mobile architectures, it
also ascertained the relationship that exists between these two metrics.
The result showed that the second-generation (2G) network has a
better-received signal strength as compared to the other generations,
but it has a very high level of radiation. On the other hand, the thirdgeneration (3G) technology seems to be in-between the 2G and 4G
technology in terms of radiation and received signal strength.
However, the fourth-generation (4G) technology has low radiation
emission but very poor signal strength as compared to the others.
Thus, this suggests that there is a significant relationship between the
different generations’ received signal strengths, electromagnetic
radiation and distance.