Waveforms of 4G and 5G Radiofrequency Signals: Are Differences Relevant to Biology or Health?

This Note briefly reviews, at a level that is intended to be accessible to non-specialists, the similarities and differences between waveforms of 4G Long-Term Evolution (4G LTE) and 5G New Radio (5G NR) transmitted by cellular base stations, as a resource for health physicists and others who are engaged in public communication about cellular telephone technologies. Despite the difference in levels of controversy presently existing between 4G LTE (introduced in 2008) and 5G NR (introduced in 2019), the differences in waveform as represented by the baseband waveform are minimal, although 5G NR offers system designers a much wider choice of parameters. Transmitted radiofrequency signals in both technologies appear noise-like, in a frequency range that is narrowly contained in the assigned channel. It is concluded that the modulation differences between 4G LTE and 5G NR are unlikely to have any biological relevance, but the greater range of accessible frequencies in 5G NR suggests the need for further health research, particularly in the 5G FR2 millimeter-wave band.