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As someone new to the 5G world I'm hearing a lot about health concerns. Can someone please explain to me the actual health concerns? My GF has been talking abou

As someone new to the 5G world I'm hearing a lot about health concerns. Can someone please explain to me the actual health concerns? My GF has been talking about it for a while now, but when I looked up health related studies of 5G on google scholar - I didn't get any meaningful hits. Is it a tin foil thing or are there really some concerns?

s_dev 7y ago
It's a tin foil hat thing. It's just wireless frequencies -- which may have some minor impact but it wouldn't be any different to 4G or 3G really and you can see that tech came and hasn't caused any major health issues.
- l0000p 7y ago
  Unfortunately, a statement like that, has just as much value as the conspiracy theory. Since 5G is a vastly different technology, the only thing we can say for certain is that we don't know the health risks at this point.
  - Nokinside 7y ago
    We know how the wavelengths penetrate into the body and how much power goes into the skin. In new 60 Ghz 5G wavelengths skin reflects 20-30% of the power and the rest is almost completely absorbed by the epidermis. Overall the power densities are so slow that there is no reason to except anything. Exposing skin to the sun is known radiation hazard. If you go outside during daytime why worry about 5G?
    - missosoup 7y ago
      > skin reflects 20-30% of the power and the rest is almost completely absorbed by the epidermis. So 70% of the energy is absorbed by the skin. What does that much energy at those freqs do to the epidermis? I don't know, you don't know. I'm not saying you're making a case for the conspiracy theories, but you're certainly not making one against them. > If you go outside during daytime why worry about 5G? If you go outside during daytime on an Australian summer day without sunscreen including underneath your clothing, you're going to get severe sunburn and permanently increase your chance of skin cancer in under 15 minutes. We have public awareness campaigns about this on TV and everything. Not a great comparison. I have no idea whether 5g freq ranges and power have health impacts, I'm just saying that clearly you don't either. You could repeat everything you said for 2.450 MHz and sound plausible, except that's the frequency of microwave ovens that cook things including humans. Do any molecules resonate at 5g freqs? I have no idea, neither do you.
      - mrtnmcc 7y ago
        Molecules don't resonate at 5G frequencies.. even with 5G mmWave, the wavelengths are about 10,000x too long (millimeters). It's like riding on a cruise ship in the ocean and worrying that the wine glass in your hand is going to resonate and shatter from the ocean waves. The impact on tissue is still thermal.. and the power flux densities of 5G are small compared to the sun, especially so because RF bandwidths are tiny compared to the blackbody radiation spectrum of the sun. You would have to show why these RF transmissions are more pathological than the random process EM waves generated by solar blackbody. If you look at a modern cellular OFDM waveform, it is almost statistically indistinguishable from broadband noise. It had the same Peak to average power ratio, the same flat spectral bandwidths, and the same affinity to causing resonances--its just much much lower in amplitude than solar.
        missosoup 7y ago
        All polar molecules will react to all EM fields. (did you know you can bend a water stream with a magnet?). The wavelength of microwave ovens is even longer, at 6.66cm. And yet that's the rotational resonant frequency of water. Weird, huh? By the way, you can confirm this with a single slice of cheese with the turnplate removed and then calculate the speed of light from the burn marks on that cheese being 3.33cm apart :) The only question is whether that reaction at any given frequency has any impact on the larger system those molecules are part of. The answer is scientists aren't sure because they haven't had a chance to experiment much, and you and I are sure as shit not qualified to comment on it. I'm not going to don a tinfoil hat over 5g rollouts, but this cavalier attitude of just expecting everything to be fine without any meaningful testing is just as bad if not worse than the conspiracy theories.
        mrtnmcc 7y ago
        Microwave ovens are not very narrowband and certainly do not excite 'rotational resonances of water'. The periodic burn marks on your cheese are from coarse standing waves within the microwave oven cavity (related to the magnetron resonance and spacing of the walls).. it has nothing to do with molecular resonances. EDIT: the reason it cooks food is the intensity of the field strength (1 kilowatt per cubic ft, or ~27,000 watts per cubic meter) in a microwave oven. 5G signals are tens of microwatts (millionths of a watt) per cubic meter. That's a difference of a factor of 10's of billions.
  - tootie 7y ago
    5G is still using radio frequency waves like every wireless communication device for the last 50 years.
  - gsich 7y ago
    Vastly different how?
    - l0000p 7y ago
      Wavelength and hardware.
      - gsich 7y ago
        Hardware, well obviously. Wavelength not so much. From 700MHz to 5 GHz everything is in use. Now 3.4GHz (main 5G frequency) is right inbetween. Nearly noone is trying to build 5G networks with the high frequencies starting from 24GHz because you have a) no range and b) line of sight is preferred.
        WarDores 7y ago
        I think the main concern comes from the mM-wave frequencies from what I've read. The others are more of the same, but a lot of what I've seen--and I can't remember where at the moment--focused exclusively on the high frequency nodes that would (theoretically) be deployed in urban areas.
        kawfey 7y ago
        People don't realize they're exposed to mmwave already. If you're on a jet or ship, in sight of a jet or ship, near an airport (not just going through a body scanner), near a weather radar station, within line of sight of a microwave relay tower, walking through automatic doors, or driving, your body is absorbing mmwave RF from something. All of those sources are from radar, which is a lot more common than one might think.
  - markus92 7y ago
    Sounds like the same thing they said for 2g, 3g, 4g and Wifi. As long as I don't see a big epidemic of brain tumors or something related, I'll take these claims with a pinch of salt.
    - chrisweekly 7y ago
      I'm no conspiracy theorist, but am a cancer survivor, and feel compelled to reply that many forms of cancer have incubation periods [so to speak] approaching 20 years. So your salt is premature.
      - testis321 7y ago
        And mobile phones have existed for 40 years, gsm for almost 30. Considering the most radiation is outputed during the phone conversations, and most people hold their phone always on the same side of the head (irradiating only that half), detecting an epidemic of mobile phone radiation sicknesses would be easy, if there were any.
  - ewzimm 7y ago
    It's true that we don't have the full picture. Nothing is certain yet, but the most likely health effects will be indirect. Two areas of concern are effects on insect populations, which are already in collapse, and effects on bacterial development, including potentially causing resistance to antibiotics. These studies would be a good place to start if you're interested in more information: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22271-3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22271-3 https://doi.org/10.3109/1040841X.2012.691461 https://doi.org/10.3109/1040841X.2012.691461
    - pas 7y ago
      The bactericidal effects study is behind a paywall (but seems to be readable here: https://www.academia.edu/10777146/Bactericidal_effects_of_low-intensity_extremely_high_frequency_electromagnetic_field_an_overview_with_phenomenon_mechanisms_targets_and_consequences https://www.academia.edu/10777146/Bactericidal_effects_of_lo... ) See also: 53GHz has some anti-microbial effects when combined with antibiotics: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265134435_The_Enhanced_Effects_of_Antibiotics_Irradiated_of_Extremely_High_Frequency_Electromagnetic_Field_on_Escherichia_coli_Growth_Properties https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265134435_The_Enhan... Interestingly the antibiotic resistance is only seen in one particular number on a graph, whereas the other numbers show that EMF seems "beneficial" as it is slowing bacterial growth. Naturally the question is, what happens if you throw human tissue in the mix too.
      - ewzimm 7y ago
        Thanks for the alert to the paywall and the comments. I had originally read it on Nature and included the reference provided on the article. The lack of consistency in results is definitely an issue, and it's true that it may be turn out to be a net benefit overall, which is why I believe we still don't have a clear understanding of the situation. Considering that bacteria adapt to their environment, we may see further unpredictable effects. The risk as I see it is not knowing how it may turn out before deploying it on a massive scale.
    - ewzimm 7y ago
      Alternative link for second reference with no paywall: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35486-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35486-1
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - s_dev 7y ago
    >the only thing we can say for certain is that we don't know the health risks at this point. Nope, we know for certain it doesn't immediately cause irrepairable negative health damage that can be observed in a lab setting because this would have already been tested.
  - rjzzleep 7y ago
    Funny I would call it almost the same. It's 4g plus channel coding, massive mimo, beamforming and more ML which influences the spectrum choices. The vastly different is a marketing term.
    - deepnotderp 7y ago
      There is "5G" with mmWave and "5G" without mmWave, you've described the latter.
      - rjzzleep 7y ago
        No, actually I described mmave. Just google the words I put in my post and see where it leads you. The problem is that most of the industry, when they think of 5G, just want to send as many 4k streams as possible everywhere.
        deepnotderp 7y ago
        No I know what those are. But the industry has generally separated a "5G without mmWave" and a "5G with mmWave" as two stages of evolution. Massive MIMO, directional/beamforming, various ML techniques, improved coding, etc. generally fall into the former category
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    > Since 5G is a vastly different technology 5G is not a vastly different technology. There are some very novel tricks under the hood, but it's still just fancy radios.
  - TheSoftwareGuy 7y ago
    5G is not a vastly different technology
- tboyd47 7y ago
  Are you aware of any longitudinal studies on the effect of wireless internet (or even electricity in general) on human health to prove your point?
- brookhaven_dude 7y ago
  Lack of evidence is not evidence of falsehood. Strong magnetic fields can make you forget things. No one know what sort of effect wrought by weak EM radiation exposure over decades. Some of us would like to err on the side of caution, if feasible. Just like GMO and organic food.
  - ilogik 7y ago
    "strong magnetic fields can make you forget things" source?
    - pas 7y ago
      (Not OP.) I thought TMS can do that, after all it can do the reverse: https://neurosciencenews.com/memory-loss-reversed-tms-12006/ https://neurosciencenews.com/memory-loss-reversed-tms-12006/ There are some adverse effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulat...
  - gimmeThaBeet 7y ago
    I feel like that philosophy is like "never look down, for fear you might have to come to terms with the giants whose shoulders you stand on." One of the tougher individual questions are 'how should one deal in societal stances one doesn't personally agree with, but tacitly relies upon society at large to in fact take those disagreeable stances?' war, defense, vaccines, GMO's, wireless communications. I call these the "you need me on that wall" things.
- ummonk 7y ago
  Well, it's higher frequency resulting in high localized absorption, so it's not no different from 4G or 3G. (I haven't seen any credible study saying it actually increases cancer risk, but from first principles, 5G increasing cancer risk, particularly skin cancer risk, doesn't seem all that absurd, similar to how sunlight increases cancer risk)
  - pas 7y ago
    60GHz is much, much, much lower than any UV. (UVA is mainly responsible for skin aging (photoaging), and it's above visible light, and visible light starts at around 400 TeraHerz.)
gsich 7y ago
No. 2.4 GHz is in use, as is 5 GHz. Now suddenly 3.4 GHz is a problem?
- chrisweekly 7y ago
  Pardon my ignorance, but aren't other factors besides frequency (power? distance?) relevant too?
  - gsich 7y ago
    True, but those apply to all.
- pas 7y ago
  60GHz is the real new and shiny thing that makes some people worry.
  - gsich 7y ago
    I doubt those will be used much. No range and line of sight is required.
    - pas 7y ago
      Busy streets, corners, plazas, indoor whatevers, and so on. Furthermore the end goal is natural convergence with WiFi. The telcos already are pushing Ethernet more and more (backhaul and fronthaul), of course over fibre (because bandwidth requirements, and timing has to be calibrated to microseconds because radio symbols are being encapsulated in Ethernet). MP-TCP has been recently merged to the kernel, it was already enabled on a lot of phones. What's missing are ways to allow hosting secure hybrid-cells/APs so telcos are able and willing to offload traffic.
landcoctos 7y ago
I think one of the concerns is in the past a cell tower would cover a large area and thus not many people were close to them. Now with 5G towers and their much shorter range people are finding these all over the place, in cities on nearly every block and thus many more people are much closer to the towers than before.
itcrowd 7y ago
5G safety is a long story, but the tl;dr is that it's not something to worry about. I tried to explain this a while back in a long thread here on HN. I tried to cite many scientific articles with more details. Please refer to that if you'd like. Maybe I'll write a blog post some day. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20454375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20454375
- landcoctos 7y ago
  > for now so worry when it's too late?
  - itcrowd 7y ago
    Ok, updated the phrasing to remove that part. I am not convinced there is anything to worry about for consumers. There may be some safety precautions that need to be taken for maintenance / installation of cell sites (in addition to the current safety measures).
- 0xDEEPFAC 7y ago
  I've lost faith in industry funded research. After all PFOA and GenX got approved for use in teflon and that stuff is most definitely toxic. Maybe we all could benefit from being a little more paranoid.
tboyd47 7y ago
Theoretically, 5G will use a higher frequency band of radiation (24Ghz-86Ghz). This band has a harder time penetrating obstacles, so you will need many more transmitters at a higher power level to cover an area. Opponents are uncomfortable with the enthusiasm of the telecom companies over 5G without sufficient (they feel) long-term research on the health effects of saturating entire neighborhoods with millimeter-wave radiation 24/7. Residents of these areas will be exposed to this radiation whether they use it or not - there is no opt-out. There is some quackery in this space (i.e. cures for "radiation sickness," etc.), but I don't consider it blameworthy to have caution concerning new technology in general, especially when the benefits of 5G to the consumer are so dubious. It seems to me like a push by the telecoms to re-implement wireless internet on their terms from the ground up in as many areas as they can before public opinion forces neutrality back on them again. I also don't think they'll actually succeed (at least in America anyway), but mostly end up selling people the same product under the label "5G LTE" or something.
- windsurfer 7y ago
  For those that are curious, the wavelength of 86Ghz radiation is about 3mm.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  The mmwave range is only one of the 5G ranges. 5G will also use the same ranges as 3G and 4G. In the mmwave range transmitters will not have to transmit higher power levels. First because the use-case for this range is when there is NO obstacles to go through (it does not really work otherwise...), in short distance situations, and then also because beam forming will always be used. > especially when the benefits of 5G to the consumer are so dubious Benefits are not limited to browsing speed on your smartphone. 5G is designed to be able to handle massive number of connected devices (e.g. IoT), very low latency (e.g. self-driving cars, industrial control), and very high reliability (industrial control, etc)
  - tboyd47 7y ago
    > the use-case for this range is when there is NO obstacles to go through (it does not really work otherwise...) So, on the one hand, 5G is going to make unicorns fly down and carry us to the heavens on wings of pure data, and on the other hand, it can't go through walls...? Research shows that two thirds of consumers are not willing to pay even $1 more for 5G internet. [0] Regardless of the promises companies are making to each other and consumers today, the demand for 5G just doesn't seem consumer-driven. --- [0] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/library/consumer-intelligence-series/promise-5g.html https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/library/consum...
m12k 7y ago
It looks to me like it's the newest battleground of the anti-vax movement. Thank god no kids need to die from it this time around.
0xDEEPFAC 7y ago
I think there is totally something to it. I mean Brussels halted the roll out over these very concerns. EU environment minister Céline Fremault: "The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt.” https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/brussels-halts-5g-plans-over-radiation-rules https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/brussels-halts-5g-plans-ov...
pilsetnieks 7y ago
Russian propagandists found a new bone to latch on to and sow chaos in the world (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-health-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-h...). Meanwhile Huawei and Ericsson are building 5G networks in Russia with full support from its government.
tzs 7y ago
A big part of it is Russia. RT has been pushing 5G scare videos for a while, and a lot of blogs have picked up the claims and mention them without citing the source. Here's a comment from a couple months ago with links to several of the RT videos if you are curious [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788559

s_dev 7y ago

It's a tin foil hat thing. It's just wireless frequencies -- which may have some minor impact but it wouldn't be any different to 4G or 3G really and you can see that tech came and hasn't caused any major health issues.

l0000p 7y ago
Unfortunately, a statement like that, has just as much value as the conspiracy theory. Since 5G is a vastly different technology, the only thing we can say for certain is that we don't know the health risks at this point.
- Nokinside 7y ago
  We know how the wavelengths penetrate into the body and how much power goes into the skin. In new 60 Ghz 5G wavelengths skin reflects 20-30% of the power and the rest is almost completely absorbed by the epidermis. Overall the power densities are so slow that there is no reason to except anything. Exposing skin to the sun is known radiation hazard. If you go outside during daytime why worry about 5G?
  - missosoup 7y ago
    > skin reflects 20-30% of the power and the rest is almost completely absorbed by the epidermis. So 70% of the energy is absorbed by the skin. What does that much energy at those freqs do to the epidermis? I don't know, you don't know. I'm not saying you're making a case for the conspiracy theories, but you're certainly not making one against them. > If you go outside during daytime why worry about 5G? If you go outside during daytime on an Australian summer day without sunscreen including underneath your clothing, you're going to get severe sunburn and permanently increase your chance of skin cancer in under 15 minutes. We have public awareness campaigns about this on TV and everything. Not a great comparison. I have no idea whether 5g freq ranges and power have health impacts, I'm just saying that clearly you don't either. You could repeat everything you said for 2.450 MHz and sound plausible, except that's the frequency of microwave ovens that cook things including humans. Do any molecules resonate at 5g freqs? I have no idea, neither do you.
    - mrtnmcc 7y ago
      Molecules don't resonate at 5G frequencies.. even with 5G mmWave, the wavelengths are about 10,000x too long (millimeters). It's like riding on a cruise ship in the ocean and worrying that the wine glass in your hand is going to resonate and shatter from the ocean waves. The impact on tissue is still thermal.. and the power flux densities of 5G are small compared to the sun, especially so because RF bandwidths are tiny compared to the blackbody radiation spectrum of the sun. You would have to show why these RF transmissions are more pathological than the random process EM waves generated by solar blackbody. If you look at a modern cellular OFDM waveform, it is almost statistically indistinguishable from broadband noise. It had the same Peak to average power ratio, the same flat spectral bandwidths, and the same affinity to causing resonances--its just much much lower in amplitude than solar.
      - missosoup 7y ago
        All polar molecules will react to all EM fields. (did you know you can bend a water stream with a magnet?). The wavelength of microwave ovens is even longer, at 6.66cm. And yet that's the rotational resonant frequency of water. Weird, huh? By the way, you can confirm this with a single slice of cheese with the turnplate removed and then calculate the speed of light from the burn marks on that cheese being 3.33cm apart :) The only question is whether that reaction at any given frequency has any impact on the larger system those molecules are part of. The answer is scientists aren't sure because they haven't had a chance to experiment much, and you and I are sure as shit not qualified to comment on it. I'm not going to don a tinfoil hat over 5g rollouts, but this cavalier attitude of just expecting everything to be fine without any meaningful testing is just as bad if not worse than the conspiracy theories.
        mrtnmcc 7y ago
        Microwave ovens are not very narrowband and certainly do not excite 'rotational resonances of water'. The periodic burn marks on your cheese are from coarse standing waves within the microwave oven cavity (related to the magnetron resonance and spacing of the walls).. it has nothing to do with molecular resonances. EDIT: the reason it cooks food is the intensity of the field strength (1 kilowatt per cubic ft, or ~27,000 watts per cubic meter) in a microwave oven. 5G signals are tens of microwatts (millionths of a watt) per cubic meter. That's a difference of a factor of 10's of billions.
- tootie 7y ago
  5G is still using radio frequency waves like every wireless communication device for the last 50 years.
- gsich 7y ago
  Vastly different how?
  - l0000p 7y ago
    Wavelength and hardware.
    - gsich 7y ago
      Hardware, well obviously. Wavelength not so much. From 700MHz to 5 GHz everything is in use. Now 3.4GHz (main 5G frequency) is right inbetween. Nearly noone is trying to build 5G networks with the high frequencies starting from 24GHz because you have a) no range and b) line of sight is preferred.
      - WarDores 7y ago
        I think the main concern comes from the mM-wave frequencies from what I've read. The others are more of the same, but a lot of what I've seen--and I can't remember where at the moment--focused exclusively on the high frequency nodes that would (theoretically) be deployed in urban areas.
        kawfey 7y ago
        People don't realize they're exposed to mmwave already. If you're on a jet or ship, in sight of a jet or ship, near an airport (not just going through a body scanner), near a weather radar station, within line of sight of a microwave relay tower, walking through automatic doors, or driving, your body is absorbing mmwave RF from something. All of those sources are from radar, which is a lot more common than one might think.
- markus92 7y ago
  Sounds like the same thing they said for 2g, 3g, 4g and Wifi. As long as I don't see a big epidemic of brain tumors or something related, I'll take these claims with a pinch of salt.
  - chrisweekly 7y ago
    I'm no conspiracy theorist, but am a cancer survivor, and feel compelled to reply that many forms of cancer have incubation periods [so to speak] approaching 20 years. So your salt is premature.
    - testis321 7y ago
      And mobile phones have existed for 40 years, gsm for almost 30. Considering the most radiation is outputed during the phone conversations, and most people hold their phone always on the same side of the head (irradiating only that half), detecting an epidemic of mobile phone radiation sicknesses would be easy, if there were any.
- ewzimm 7y ago
  It's true that we don't have the full picture. Nothing is certain yet, but the most likely health effects will be indirect. Two areas of concern are effects on insect populations, which are already in collapse, and effects on bacterial development, including potentially causing resistance to antibiotics. These studies would be a good place to start if you're interested in more information: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22271-3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22271-3 https://doi.org/10.3109/1040841X.2012.691461 https://doi.org/10.3109/1040841X.2012.691461
  - pas 7y ago
    The bactericidal effects study is behind a paywall (but seems to be readable here: https://www.academia.edu/10777146/Bactericidal_effects_of_low-intensity_extremely_high_frequency_electromagnetic_field_an_overview_with_phenomenon_mechanisms_targets_and_consequences https://www.academia.edu/10777146/Bactericidal_effects_of_lo... ) See also: 53GHz has some anti-microbial effects when combined with antibiotics: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265134435_The_Enhanced_Effects_of_Antibiotics_Irradiated_of_Extremely_High_Frequency_Electromagnetic_Field_on_Escherichia_coli_Growth_Properties https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265134435_The_Enhan... Interestingly the antibiotic resistance is only seen in one particular number on a graph, whereas the other numbers show that EMF seems "beneficial" as it is slowing bacterial growth. Naturally the question is, what happens if you throw human tissue in the mix too.
    - ewzimm 7y ago
      Thanks for the alert to the paywall and the comments. I had originally read it on Nature and included the reference provided on the article. The lack of consistency in results is definitely an issue, and it's true that it may be turn out to be a net benefit overall, which is why I believe we still don't have a clear understanding of the situation. Considering that bacteria adapt to their environment, we may see further unpredictable effects. The risk as I see it is not knowing how it may turn out before deploying it on a massive scale.
  - ewzimm 7y ago
    Alternative link for second reference with no paywall: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35486-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35486-1
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- s_dev 7y ago
  >the only thing we can say for certain is that we don't know the health risks at this point. Nope, we know for certain it doesn't immediately cause irrepairable negative health damage that can be observed in a lab setting because this would have already been tested.
- rjzzleep 7y ago
  Funny I would call it almost the same. It's 4g plus channel coding, massive mimo, beamforming and more ML which influences the spectrum choices. The vastly different is a marketing term.
  - deepnotderp 7y ago
    There is "5G" with mmWave and "5G" without mmWave, you've described the latter.
    - rjzzleep 7y ago
      No, actually I described mmave. Just google the words I put in my post and see where it leads you. The problem is that most of the industry, when they think of 5G, just want to send as many 4k streams as possible everywhere.
      - deepnotderp 7y ago
        No I know what those are. But the industry has generally separated a "5G without mmWave" and a "5G with mmWave" as two stages of evolution. Massive MIMO, directional/beamforming, various ML techniques, improved coding, etc. generally fall into the former category
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  > Since 5G is a vastly different technology 5G is not a vastly different technology. There are some very novel tricks under the hood, but it's still just fancy radios.
- TheSoftwareGuy 7y ago
  5G is not a vastly different technology
tboyd47 7y ago
Are you aware of any longitudinal studies on the effect of wireless internet (or even electricity in general) on human health to prove your point?
brookhaven_dude 7y ago
Lack of evidence is not evidence of falsehood. Strong magnetic fields can make you forget things. No one know what sort of effect wrought by weak EM radiation exposure over decades. Some of us would like to err on the side of caution, if feasible. Just like GMO and organic food.
- ilogik 7y ago
  "strong magnetic fields can make you forget things" source?
  - pas 7y ago
    (Not OP.) I thought TMS can do that, after all it can do the reverse: https://neurosciencenews.com/memory-loss-reversed-tms-12006/ https://neurosciencenews.com/memory-loss-reversed-tms-12006/ There are some adverse effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulat...
- gimmeThaBeet 7y ago
  I feel like that philosophy is like "never look down, for fear you might have to come to terms with the giants whose shoulders you stand on." One of the tougher individual questions are 'how should one deal in societal stances one doesn't personally agree with, but tacitly relies upon society at large to in fact take those disagreeable stances?' war, defense, vaccines, GMO's, wireless communications. I call these the "you need me on that wall" things.
ummonk 7y ago
Well, it's higher frequency resulting in high localized absorption, so it's not no different from 4G or 3G. (I haven't seen any credible study saying it actually increases cancer risk, but from first principles, 5G increasing cancer risk, particularly skin cancer risk, doesn't seem all that absurd, similar to how sunlight increases cancer risk)
- pas 7y ago
  60GHz is much, much, much lower than any UV. (UVA is mainly responsible for skin aging (photoaging), and it's above visible light, and visible light starts at around 400 TeraHerz.)

gsich 7y ago

No. 2.4 GHz is in use, as is 5 GHz. Now suddenly 3.4 GHz is a problem?

chrisweekly 7y ago
Pardon my ignorance, but aren't other factors besides frequency (power? distance?) relevant too?
- gsich 7y ago
  True, but those apply to all.
pas 7y ago
60GHz is the real new and shiny thing that makes some people worry.
- gsich 7y ago
  I doubt those will be used much. No range and line of sight is required.
  - pas 7y ago
    Busy streets, corners, plazas, indoor whatevers, and so on. Furthermore the end goal is natural convergence with WiFi. The telcos already are pushing Ethernet more and more (backhaul and fronthaul), of course over fibre (because bandwidth requirements, and timing has to be calibrated to microseconds because radio symbols are being encapsulated in Ethernet). MP-TCP has been recently merged to the kernel, it was already enabled on a lot of phones. What's missing are ways to allow hosting secure hybrid-cells/APs so telcos are able and willing to offload traffic.

landcoctos 7y ago

I think one of the concerns is in the past a cell tower would cover a large area and thus not many people were close to them. Now with 5G towers and their much shorter range people are finding these all over the place, in cities on nearly every block and thus many more people are much closer to the towers than before.

itcrowd 7y ago

5G safety is a long story, but the tl;dr is that it's not something to worry about. I tried to explain this a while back in a long thread here on HN. I tried to cite many scientific articles with more details. Please refer to that if you'd like. Maybe I'll write a blog post some day. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20454375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20454375

landcoctos 7y ago
> for now so worry when it's too late?
- itcrowd 7y ago
  Ok, updated the phrasing to remove that part. I am not convinced there is anything to worry about for consumers. There may be some safety precautions that need to be taken for maintenance / installation of cell sites (in addition to the current safety measures).
0xDEEPFAC 7y ago
I've lost faith in industry funded research. After all PFOA and GenX got approved for use in teflon and that stuff is most definitely toxic. Maybe we all could benefit from being a little more paranoid.

tboyd47 7y ago

Theoretically, 5G will use a higher frequency band of radiation (24Ghz-86Ghz). This band has a harder time penetrating obstacles, so you will need many more transmitters at a higher power level to cover an area. Opponents are uncomfortable with the enthusiasm of the telecom companies over 5G without sufficient (they feel) long-term research on the health effects of saturating entire neighborhoods with millimeter-wave radiation 24/7. Residents of these areas will be exposed to this radiation whether they use it or not - there is no opt-out. There is some quackery in this space (i.e. cures for "radiation sickness," etc.), but I don't consider it blameworthy to have caution concerning new technology in general, especially when the benefits of 5G to the consumer are so dubious. It seems to me like a push by the telecoms to re-implement wireless internet on their terms from the ground up in as many areas as they can before public opinion forces neutrality back on them again. I also don't think they'll actually succeed (at least in America anyway), but mostly end up selling people the same product under the label "5G LTE" or something.

windsurfer 7y ago
For those that are curious, the wavelength of 86Ghz radiation is about 3mm.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
The mmwave range is only one of the 5G ranges. 5G will also use the same ranges as 3G and 4G. In the mmwave range transmitters will not have to transmit higher power levels. First because the use-case for this range is when there is NO obstacles to go through (it does not really work otherwise...), in short distance situations, and then also because beam forming will always be used. > especially when the benefits of 5G to the consumer are so dubious Benefits are not limited to browsing speed on your smartphone. 5G is designed to be able to handle massive number of connected devices (e.g. IoT), very low latency (e.g. self-driving cars, industrial control), and very high reliability (industrial control, etc)
- tboyd47 7y ago
  > the use-case for this range is when there is NO obstacles to go through (it does not really work otherwise...) So, on the one hand, 5G is going to make unicorns fly down and carry us to the heavens on wings of pure data, and on the other hand, it can't go through walls...? Research shows that two thirds of consumers are not willing to pay even $1 more for 5G internet. [0] Regardless of the promises companies are making to each other and consumers today, the demand for 5G just doesn't seem consumer-driven. --- [0] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/library/consumer-intelligence-series/promise-5g.html https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/library/consum...

m12k 7y ago

It looks to me like it's the newest battleground of the anti-vax movement. Thank god no kids need to die from it this time around.

0xDEEPFAC 7y ago

I think there is totally something to it. I mean Brussels halted the roll out over these very concerns. EU environment minister Céline Fremault: "The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt.” https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/brussels-halts-5g-plans-over-radiation-rules https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/brussels-halts-5g-plans-ov...

pilsetnieks 7y ago

Russian propagandists found a new bone to latch on to and sow chaos in the world (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-health-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-h...). Meanwhile Huawei and Ericsson are building 5G networks in Russia with full support from its government.

tzs 7y ago

A big part of it is Russia. RT has been pushing 5G scare videos for a while, and a lot of blogs have picked up the claims and mention them without citing the source. Here's a comment from a couple months ago with links to several of the RT videos if you are curious [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788559