5 ms·

But contrary to 3G, saturation of actual, human related client devices should be reached today. I agree that some mangling of frequency bands might be nice to a

by fock 8y ago

But contrary to 3G, saturation of actual, human related client devices should be reached today. I agree that some mangling of frequency bands might be nice to accomodate for high-device densities (metro tunnels during rushhour are bad around here). What I personally don't get about the whole 5G-craziness is why we (as a society made up of humans in contrast to consumers which fill the pockets of shareholders) need it? Today, we face a number of challenges which all result from our lifestyle requiring an unsustainable amount of ressources/releasing a massive amount of substances (be it fungicides (candida auris up front here recently), antibiotics or CO2). Why do we "have to" go for artifical, industry-driven growth again, when we really should focus on increasing the efficiency (or even forgo implementation of ressource-using technology)? And 5G will entail a massive increase in power-consumption (more bandwith), the number of cell-"towers" [most frequencies applicable to WANs are already utilized – a lot of the promise of increased network performance now lays on microcells (e.g. every bus stop get's a basestation)] [1] and requirements on the network-clients (why stop at low-latency, if we can sell you 4K-video calls for your 8K-display...). As for the "health effects": I believe that for classic networks the effects are negligible (though it's hard to reliably do studies on this. It's like with Dieselgate and the health issues...). What happens on the long term if you move around a city where every surveillance camera has a wideband (think radar and microwaves), 5-10W transmitter, beamforming that power to the receiving device unaware of any obstructions such as various bodyparts, which are definitely affected. I guess this is really something you should study (even industry agrees [2]). BEFORE DEPLOYMENT. Additionally the whole beamforming stuff with microwaves opens up really interesting possibilities: how about hacking your surveillance cameras+the basestation and then frying the eyes of some commuters sitting idly around. And with most of the devices operating completely on software and increasingly being single sourced, such stunts are becoming relatively easy to pull of. [1] https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/power-consumption-5g-basestations-are-hungry-hungry-hippos/d/d-id/749979 https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/power-consumption-5g-... - "sponsored by Cisco Juniper Qualcomm" [2] https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-Health%20Effects%20of%20mmWave%20Radiation-PI-v01_01-EN.pdf?fileId=5546d46266a498f50166f1ada0520444 https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-Health%20Effects%20of...

jnurmine 8y ago
With 5G latencies, you can remote control more things (like excavators). Which means less need for humans to be physically present, which means less transportation (read: cars), which means less pollution. Looking at the bigger picture, and counting in energy savings innovations on the basestation/network level, and so on, it might not be a clear-cut "5G spends more energy".
- fock 8y ago
  When all thy mercies, oh my progress... I think you're a victim of the fallacy of eternal growth thaught for years by capitalist and communist economists alike (and even picked up by most green movements around the globe). If you realize that our consumption is way above it's sustainable limit, the only way to prove that we have really evolved from the barbarism of a pack of wolves is to try everything possible to fold back consumption into this limit. And since we start crossing some irreversibility thresholds, this means acting now. So we should start cutting consumption and innovate existing technologies so that they become more efficient, instead of increasing consumption and hoping (which roots back to religion – it's kind of interesting that in a time of the decline of classic, philosophical religions, most of the people have adopted blind trust into technology, which does not recognise hardship or offer any consolence in it) for some random technological breakthrough (which would then need years to be adapted on scale – of course we can still search (R&D is not that big of a polluter (except for nukes))). I really would like to see some calculations for "the bigger picture", which show that 5G and the entailing consumption frenzy will bring us nearer to a sustainable society. Practically for remote-controlled exvacators: why can't you just put a remote control-terminal ontop of the next fibre-"hub"? 5G (or at least the part, where you build small cells with high-frequency-bands) won't be deployed in Alaska anytime soon and this is something which you can easily add on todays infrastructure once you realize that it's actually beneficial. Maybe you should also take a step back on exvacation – with steel and concrete making up about 15% of carbon-dioxide emissions, I doubt that reducing transportation for construction workers (in industrialized countries, I doubt that any construction "worker" in China or Arabia has a car...) has anywhere near the same impact as a 5% reduction in construction.
  - 8y ago

by fock 8y ago

jnurmine 8y ago

With 5G latencies, you can remote control more things (like excavators). Which means less need for humans to be physically present, which means less transportation (read: cars), which means less pollution. Looking at the bigger picture, and counting in energy savings innovations on the basestation/network level, and so on, it might not be a clear-cut "5G spends more energy".

fock 8y ago
When all thy mercies, oh my progress... I think you're a victim of the fallacy of eternal growth thaught for years by capitalist and communist economists alike (and even picked up by most green movements around the globe). If you realize that our consumption is way above it's sustainable limit, the only way to prove that we have really evolved from the barbarism of a pack of wolves is to try everything possible to fold back consumption into this limit. And since we start crossing some irreversibility thresholds, this means acting now. So we should start cutting consumption and innovate existing technologies so that they become more efficient, instead of increasing consumption and hoping (which roots back to religion – it's kind of interesting that in a time of the decline of classic, philosophical religions, most of the people have adopted blind trust into technology, which does not recognise hardship or offer any consolence in it) for some random technological breakthrough (which would then need years to be adapted on scale – of course we can still search (R&D is not that big of a polluter (except for nukes))). I really would like to see some calculations for "the bigger picture", which show that 5G and the entailing consumption frenzy will bring us nearer to a sustainable society. Practically for remote-controlled exvacators: why can't you just put a remote control-terminal ontop of the next fibre-"hub"? 5G (or at least the part, where you build small cells with high-frequency-bands) won't be deployed in Alaska anytime soon and this is something which you can easily add on todays infrastructure once you realize that it's actually beneficial. Maybe you should also take a step back on exvacation – with steel and concrete making up about 15% of carbon-dioxide emissions, I doubt that reducing transportation for construction workers (in industrialized countries, I doubt that any construction "worker" in China or Arabia has a car...) has anywhere near the same impact as a 5% reduction in construction.
- 8y ago