6 ms·

Stop global roll out of 5G networks until safety is confirmed, urges expert

35 points by rustoo 6y ago

bitcharmer 6y ago
I'm a complete ignorant in the matter, so will ask here. Did we have any research like this prior to rolling out 4G? Or is this concern about 5G simply because the frequencies involved are much higher?
- rsync 6y ago
  The frequencies may be higher but I believe the power is quite a bit lower - which is the point of 5G, yes ?
  - bdamm 6y ago
    The objective of 5G is to increase profits for carriers by more deeply entrenching wireless broadband.
    - daemoon 6y ago
      So you're suggesting that carriers want to make more money? Interesting...
- namibj 6y ago
  4G doesn't do anything weird compared to older mobile/cellular radio technology. 5G includes an order of magnitude higher frequencies, with far less penetration depth into humans. Thus the power is dumped into less volume. While the power levels involved seem very safe, we don't have the vast research body of cm waves.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    But we do have a lot of research into the effects of radio on biological cells, though. Is the assumption here that less power but higher frequency would somehow have effects on the body that have previously never been noticed and for which there is no present theoretical basis? Is this theory falsifiable in any reasonable way?
pjc50 6y ago
Opinion piece by non-expert in the field, failure to clearly present specific evidence (it's referred to, but not linked), pet subject for cranks. This is the kind of piece that makes the debate worse not better.
- cutitout 6y ago
  You haven't addressed a single point. Being an expert should help a person to make arguments, and sometimes does, but it's not an argument in and of itself.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    sigh OK, full text: https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-213595 https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-2135... > Critics of 5G agree6–8—but its supporters do not9 10—that the overall population levels of exposure to RF-EMFs will be greatly increased by the 5G roll-out. One compelling argument for that view is the ‘inverse square law’ of EMF exposure: intensity varies as the inverse of the square of the distance from the emitting source.11 With plans afoot internationally to put a 5G booster antenna on ‘every second or third lamp-post’, it is difficult to believe that overall population exposures will not increase substantially Yes, there will be more antennas. Does not address the question of power levels: part of the point of more antennas is that each individual station can have lower power output. No mention of "watts", antenna ERP, or indeed power anywhere in the article. > International health protection agencies and their scientific advisory bodies have published several reviews over the last decade, of varying scientific quality, of the research evidence regarding potential adverse biological and health effects of RF-EMFs.5 12–15 These reviews—by Health Protection England,12 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC),13 an Expert European Union (EU) Committee14 and the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP)15—have, with one exception, not converged around a strong warning about such effects In other words, current investigations do not support evidence of harm. > Moreover, a growing number of engineers, scientists, and doctors internationally have been calling on governments to raise their safety standards for RF-EMFs, commission more and better research, and hold off on further increases in public exposure, pending clearer evidence of safety.18–21 Some politicians have listened: France, Israel, Cyprus and Russia have banned WiFi in preschool and restricted its use in primary schools. Belgium has banned the sale of mobile phones to children under seven. In response to such concerns, several jurisdictions have recently blocked the installation of 5G antennae systems in their communities: Brussels, Florence, Rome, as well as Glastonbury, Frome and Totnes in the UK; and widespread anti-5G campaigns are now emerging in Australia, North America and elsewhere. This is true but is a kind of self-referential policy; places that have banned 5G have often done so for unscientific reasons! Saying that there are anti-5G campaigns is like saying there are anti-mask campaigns; it is not actually evidence of harm. > more conservative jurisdictions’ guidelines, which are based on a wider variety of biological and health effects documented in recent decades [citation needed] - no really, there are citations for other bits, where's the health effects citation? > A striking feature of this public controversy is that various commentators—even those with advanced training in telecommunications physics and engineering—inconsistently refer to quite different specific technologies when they discuss the pros and cons of 5G Well, yes, it's a marketing term. Discussion of local councils and lampposts. Hard to see relevance. No details of harm. > One’s overall assessment of the likelihood that an exposure causes a health condition should take into account a wide variety of evidence, including ‘biological plausibility And "biological plausibility" is where it falls down, because I've not yet seen (and it's not expressed here either) a mechanism other than the raw heating effect of absorption used by the EU SAR metrics which has any plausible biological effect. See para on "non-thermogenic adverse effects" (what effects? How do they work? At what levels?) > Finally, Carpenter has recently published a well-researched analysis of how source of funding correlates with study findings, across many peer-reviewed publications over the last few decades, of the relationship between various kinds of EMF exposure and several cancers.39 He shows convincingly that studies funded by private sector entities, with strong vested interests in maintaining their current use of the sources of EMFs under study, tend to find no association OK, this is a genuine question that does need to be asked, because we know there's been problems with this before. > innovations in radio frequency ‘pulsing,’ ‘polarisation’ and ‘modulation’ Non-physicist discovers QAM, is confused. Again, no explanation given of why this might make a difference.
baxter001 6y ago
A meta-response: https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/should-we-pause-the-5g-roll-out-until-safety-is-confirmed https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/should-we-pause-the-5g-roll-...
- headconnect 6y ago
  Its precisely this level of discourse we need when such topics are raised. Thanks for the link!
est 6y ago
5G might never fully rollout, carriers would find electricity bills too high, if what the article suggested is even half true.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
After burning blasphemous 5G cell towers at the stake and setting traps for cell-site technician priests, anti-5G believers try proselytizing directly to the heathen.
robjan 6y ago
One of the "dangers" presented in the article is the greater density of masts but that means rather than having high energy masts blasting radio waves broadly over the population, we can have lots of low power ones. That seems like a better situation to me.
- tzs 6y ago
  Not necessarily. Remember that field strength goes as the inverse square of the distance from the transmitter. Suppose you need a certain minimum field strength for the receivers to work, and suppose it turns out that there is also a maximum safe field strength. With a system based on a small number of powerful transmitters to cover an area you can usually place those transmitters in somewhat out of the way places that few people get near. You will have variation in field strength as you move around within the service area, but it won't be a lot of variation. If I'm 1000 m from the transmitter and move 1 m closer, the field gets 0.2% stronger. With a system based on a large number of weaker transmitters those transmitters need to be closer to where the receivers are to get the same minimum field strength throughout the same area. But with people much closer to the transmitters, there will be a lot more variation in field strength as they move around, so it would be harder to make sure that no places where people commonly go stays under your maximum. If I'm 100 m from the transmitter and move 1 m closer, the field gets 2% stronger. If I'm 10 m from the transmitter and move 1 m closer, the field gets 23% stronger.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    There are a few problems with this argument though. It's technically correct, but: 1. All mobile protocols reduce signal strength to the lowest possible to reach the device. The field strength isn't some constant quantity. 5G is all about massive beamforming and super accurate power management. You're being targeted with an individual beam that's reduced the min strength possible to actually maintain radio contact. So moving closer doesn't imply a stronger 'field'. 2. Even with 4G it's totally common to have lots of base stations in the middle of cities, on rooftops, etc. It's not like they're all in the middle of empty fields today, far from it.
  - jsjdjfjfjjrjfk 6y ago
secondcoming 6y ago
I finally got a 5G signal near my home. The mast is further away than the 4G mast but I'm getting ~250Mbps down, and 60 Mbps up. Pings could be better though. I can't wait for the closer 4G mast to be upgraded. Stop this roll out over my dead body.
daemoon 6y ago
> Its inherent fragility means that transmission boosting ‘cell’ antennae are generally required every 100–300 m—which is far more spatially dense than the transmission masts required for older 2G, 3G and 4G technology, using lower frequency waves I can see that it's necessary to place 5G masts more densely in order to deliver the promised transmission rates and coverage but it seems like a bad solution to a greater problem. Assuming the trend continues one would need even more cells to deliver 6G, 7G etc. Are there no other ways of increasing the bandwidth without placing a mast at every city corner?
- 1241rtfasfasf 6y ago
  The high frequencies are one of the techniques in 5G that enable faster data transmission. Another is beamforming: instead of broadcasting data in all directions, it is only sent in the direction of your smartphone. The thing is, there's no change for the receiving smartphone (same RF transmission power), just reduction in interference for others. [edit: thereby, you can have more devices talking on the same frequency without disturbing each other, since they are separated by the "beams"]
CraigJPerry 6y ago
Quite a weak article, i’m surprised this makes the bar for publication. There’s a fair amount of contradiction too, it makes a distinction of “5G EMF” but then goes on to say 5G is loosely defined. So why 5G EMF and not just EMF? EMF in the Ghz to Thz range is not new. The only extra information conferred by adding 5G to the term is that we’re restricting the concerns to EMF at very low power levels (milliwatts). I missed any links to let me follow up on the claims of harm found from non ionising radiation. I definitely want to see a bit more of the basis for those claims because if they’re based on findings at megawatts of RF energy then it’s not exactly useful, on the other hand if the findings are based on milliwatts of RF energy, that’s potentially a concern. Side note: i don’t know if you’ve had a look at the 2.4GHz spectrum recently but i am amazed at the amount of emissions and i live next to mostly fields, genuinely surprised to see much in the way of emissions. Bluetooth beacons are a real stand out surprise, neighbours televisions, bathroom scales, all sorts of things that I wouldn’t expect to beacon when turned off.
abeppu 6y ago
On the one hand, it seems like to really understand the public health consequences, especially if some of the important effects are likely to be rare, one would likely need to see a large population exposed for a very long period of time (e.g. do babies who live their whole life around this tech develop some cancer when they're middle aged?) meaning the wait could be very long indeed, and probably by the end of it, engineers would have figured out something way better anyway. But on the other hand, we do seem too prone to jump headlong into wide use of new tech without understanding all their impacts. Light pollution, climate change, microplastics inside everything including human placentas, leaded gasoline which may have driven a generation of higher crime rates, etc etc. So in what cases _should_ we as a society wait a few decades to really vet something on a beta-testing population, if ever?
- akmarinov 6y ago
  Like you said something like 5G causing cancer 30 years down the line would be very difficult to pinpoint as a cause of 5G, due to hundreds of other factors. Either way, if you're worried about 5G, you should be worried about terrestrial TV airwaves as well.
gnabgib 6y ago
The actual essay[0] is more tempered than the linked news release would suggest, and sounds like Professor Frank is hedging more than anything. The precise technology used is a complicated by 5G using different frequency bands between countries[1], even between providers [2] [0]: https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-213595 https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-2135... [1]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/upgrade-now-or-wait-canadas-5g-secrets-revealed https://www.pcmag.com/news/upgrade-now-or-wait-canadas-5g-se... [2]: https://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-vs-at-t-vs-t-mobile-vs-sprint-5g-we-compare-their-peak-speeds/ https://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-vs-at-t-vs-t-mobile-vs-spr... (Although this article is old enough things may have changed)
swiley 6y ago
Honestly, safety isn't my biggest complaint about 5g. We already have a wireless standard for short range networks: WiFi. It supports the same bands and multi antenna beam forming techniques. 5G means replacing open WiFi networks with networks controlled by a handful of companies paying fees to one or two equipment manufactures and pretty much exclusively Qualcomm in the US. Yes, the same Qualcomm that makes Android such a shitty platform by not publish GPU specs/driver code so you can throw out the broken code from the OEM.
- 1241rtfasfasf 6y ago
  I haven't seen use case proposals where 5G replaces home WiFis. It's often referred to as replacing the last mile to your home (i.e., your home router would talk 4G/5G to the operator and create a WiFi in your home). Also, some "small cell" approaches use WiFi and only do the access management using the mobile network. WiFi on the other hand doesn't have any approaches for wide coverage, cell handover, or any kind of IoT applications. I'd expect that smaller manufacturers emerge, especially for niche use cases outside consumer mass-markets.

35 points by rustoo 6y ago

I'm a complete ignorant in the matter, so will ask here. Did we have any research like this prior to rolling out 4G? Or is this concern about 5G simply because the frequencies involved are much higher?

rsync 6y ago
The frequencies may be higher but I believe the power is quite a bit lower - which is the point of 5G, yes ?
- bdamm 6y ago
  The objective of 5G is to increase profits for carriers by more deeply entrenching wireless broadband.
  - daemoon 6y ago
    So you're suggesting that carriers want to make more money? Interesting...
namibj 6y ago
4G doesn't do anything weird compared to older mobile/cellular radio technology. 5G includes an order of magnitude higher frequencies, with far less penetration depth into humans. Thus the power is dumped into less volume. While the power levels involved seem very safe, we don't have the vast research body of cm waves.
- thu2111 6y ago
  But we do have a lot of research into the effects of radio on biological cells, though. Is the assumption here that less power but higher frequency would somehow have effects on the body that have previously never been noticed and for which there is no present theoretical basis? Is this theory falsifiable in any reasonable way?

pjc50 6y ago

Opinion piece by non-expert in the field, failure to clearly present specific evidence (it's referred to, but not linked), pet subject for cranks. This is the kind of piece that makes the debate worse not better.

cutitout 6y ago
You haven't addressed a single point. Being an expert should help a person to make arguments, and sometimes does, but it's not an argument in and of itself.
- pjc50 6y ago
  sigh OK, full text: https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-213595 https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-2135... > Critics of 5G agree6–8—but its supporters do not9 10—that the overall population levels of exposure to RF-EMFs will be greatly increased by the 5G roll-out. One compelling argument for that view is the ‘inverse square law’ of EMF exposure: intensity varies as the inverse of the square of the distance from the emitting source.11 With plans afoot internationally to put a 5G booster antenna on ‘every second or third lamp-post’, it is difficult to believe that overall population exposures will not increase substantially Yes, there will be more antennas. Does not address the question of power levels: part of the point of more antennas is that each individual station can have lower power output. No mention of "watts", antenna ERP, or indeed power anywhere in the article. > International health protection agencies and their scientific advisory bodies have published several reviews over the last decade, of varying scientific quality, of the research evidence regarding potential adverse biological and health effects of RF-EMFs.5 12–15 These reviews—by Health Protection England,12 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC),13 an Expert European Union (EU) Committee14 and the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP)15—have, with one exception, not converged around a strong warning about such effects In other words, current investigations do not support evidence of harm. > Moreover, a growing number of engineers, scientists, and doctors internationally have been calling on governments to raise their safety standards for RF-EMFs, commission more and better research, and hold off on further increases in public exposure, pending clearer evidence of safety.18–21 Some politicians have listened: France, Israel, Cyprus and Russia have banned WiFi in preschool and restricted its use in primary schools. Belgium has banned the sale of mobile phones to children under seven. In response to such concerns, several jurisdictions have recently blocked the installation of 5G antennae systems in their communities: Brussels, Florence, Rome, as well as Glastonbury, Frome and Totnes in the UK; and widespread anti-5G campaigns are now emerging in Australia, North America and elsewhere. This is true but is a kind of self-referential policy; places that have banned 5G have often done so for unscientific reasons! Saying that there are anti-5G campaigns is like saying there are anti-mask campaigns; it is not actually evidence of harm. > more conservative jurisdictions’ guidelines, which are based on a wider variety of biological and health effects documented in recent decades [citation needed] - no really, there are citations for other bits, where's the health effects citation? > A striking feature of this public controversy is that various commentators—even those with advanced training in telecommunications physics and engineering—inconsistently refer to quite different specific technologies when they discuss the pros and cons of 5G Well, yes, it's a marketing term. Discussion of local councils and lampposts. Hard to see relevance. No details of harm. > One’s overall assessment of the likelihood that an exposure causes a health condition should take into account a wide variety of evidence, including ‘biological plausibility And "biological plausibility" is where it falls down, because I've not yet seen (and it's not expressed here either) a mechanism other than the raw heating effect of absorption used by the EU SAR metrics which has any plausible biological effect. See para on "non-thermogenic adverse effects" (what effects? How do they work? At what levels?) > Finally, Carpenter has recently published a well-researched analysis of how source of funding correlates with study findings, across many peer-reviewed publications over the last few decades, of the relationship between various kinds of EMF exposure and several cancers.39 He shows convincingly that studies funded by private sector entities, with strong vested interests in maintaining their current use of the sources of EMFs under study, tend to find no association OK, this is a genuine question that does need to be asked, because we know there's been problems with this before. > innovations in radio frequency ‘pulsing,’ ‘polarisation’ and ‘modulation’ Non-physicist discovers QAM, is confused. Again, no explanation given of why this might make a difference.

baxter001 6y ago

A meta-response: https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/should-we-pause-the-5g-roll-out-until-safety-is-confirmed https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/should-we-pause-the-5g-roll-...

headconnect 6y ago
Its precisely this level of discourse we need when such topics are raised. Thanks for the link!

est 6y ago

5G might never fully rollout, carriers would find electricity bills too high, if what the article suggested is even half true.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

After burning blasphemous 5G cell towers at the stake and setting traps for cell-site technician priests, anti-5G believers try proselytizing directly to the heathen.

robjan 6y ago

One of the "dangers" presented in the article is the greater density of masts but that means rather than having high energy masts blasting radio waves broadly over the population, we can have lots of low power ones. That seems like a better situation to me.

tzs 6y ago
Not necessarily. Remember that field strength goes as the inverse square of the distance from the transmitter. Suppose you need a certain minimum field strength for the receivers to work, and suppose it turns out that there is also a maximum safe field strength. With a system based on a small number of powerful transmitters to cover an area you can usually place those transmitters in somewhat out of the way places that few people get near. You will have variation in field strength as you move around within the service area, but it won't be a lot of variation. If I'm 1000 m from the transmitter and move 1 m closer, the field gets 0.2% stronger. With a system based on a large number of weaker transmitters those transmitters need to be closer to where the receivers are to get the same minimum field strength throughout the same area. But with people much closer to the transmitters, there will be a lot more variation in field strength as they move around, so it would be harder to make sure that no places where people commonly go stays under your maximum. If I'm 100 m from the transmitter and move 1 m closer, the field gets 2% stronger. If I'm 10 m from the transmitter and move 1 m closer, the field gets 23% stronger.
- thu2111 6y ago
  There are a few problems with this argument though. It's technically correct, but: 1. All mobile protocols reduce signal strength to the lowest possible to reach the device. The field strength isn't some constant quantity. 5G is all about massive beamforming and super accurate power management. You're being targeted with an individual beam that's reduced the min strength possible to actually maintain radio contact. So moving closer doesn't imply a stronger 'field'. 2. Even with 4G it's totally common to have lots of base stations in the middle of cities, on rooftops, etc. It's not like they're all in the middle of empty fields today, far from it.
- jsjdjfjfjjrjfk 6y ago

secondcoming 6y ago

I finally got a 5G signal near my home. The mast is further away than the 4G mast but I'm getting ~250Mbps down, and 60 Mbps up. Pings could be better though. I can't wait for the closer 4G mast to be upgraded. Stop this roll out over my dead body.

daemoon 6y ago

> Its inherent fragility means that transmission boosting ‘cell’ antennae are generally required every 100–300 m—which is far more spatially dense than the transmission masts required for older 2G, 3G and 4G technology, using lower frequency waves I can see that it's necessary to place 5G masts more densely in order to deliver the promised transmission rates and coverage but it seems like a bad solution to a greater problem. Assuming the trend continues one would need even more cells to deliver 6G, 7G etc. Are there no other ways of increasing the bandwidth without placing a mast at every city corner?

1241rtfasfasf 6y ago
The high frequencies are one of the techniques in 5G that enable faster data transmission. Another is beamforming: instead of broadcasting data in all directions, it is only sent in the direction of your smartphone. The thing is, there's no change for the receiving smartphone (same RF transmission power), just reduction in interference for others. [edit: thereby, you can have more devices talking on the same frequency without disturbing each other, since they are separated by the "beams"]

CraigJPerry 6y ago

Quite a weak article, i’m surprised this makes the bar for publication. There’s a fair amount of contradiction too, it makes a distinction of “5G EMF” but then goes on to say 5G is loosely defined. So why 5G EMF and not just EMF? EMF in the Ghz to Thz range is not new. The only extra information conferred by adding 5G to the term is that we’re restricting the concerns to EMF at very low power levels (milliwatts). I missed any links to let me follow up on the claims of harm found from non ionising radiation. I definitely want to see a bit more of the basis for those claims because if they’re based on findings at megawatts of RF energy then it’s not exactly useful, on the other hand if the findings are based on milliwatts of RF energy, that’s potentially a concern. Side note: i don’t know if you’ve had a look at the 2.4GHz spectrum recently but i am amazed at the amount of emissions and i live next to mostly fields, genuinely surprised to see much in the way of emissions. Bluetooth beacons are a real stand out surprise, neighbours televisions, bathroom scales, all sorts of things that I wouldn’t expect to beacon when turned off.

abeppu 6y ago

On the one hand, it seems like to really understand the public health consequences, especially if some of the important effects are likely to be rare, one would likely need to see a large population exposed for a very long period of time (e.g. do babies who live their whole life around this tech develop some cancer when they're middle aged?) meaning the wait could be very long indeed, and probably by the end of it, engineers would have figured out something way better anyway. But on the other hand, we do seem too prone to jump headlong into wide use of new tech without understanding all their impacts. Light pollution, climate change, microplastics inside everything including human placentas, leaded gasoline which may have driven a generation of higher crime rates, etc etc. So in what cases _should_ we as a society wait a few decades to really vet something on a beta-testing population, if ever?

akmarinov 6y ago
Like you said something like 5G causing cancer 30 years down the line would be very difficult to pinpoint as a cause of 5G, due to hundreds of other factors. Either way, if you're worried about 5G, you should be worried about terrestrial TV airwaves as well.

gnabgib 6y ago

The actual essay[0] is more tempered than the linked news release would suggest, and sounds like Professor Frank is hedging more than anything. The precise technology used is a complicated by 5G using different frequency bands between countries[1], even between providers [2] [0]: https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-213595 https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/04/jech-2019-2135... [1]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/upgrade-now-or-wait-canadas-5g-secrets-revealed https://www.pcmag.com/news/upgrade-now-or-wait-canadas-5g-se... [2]: https://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-vs-at-t-vs-t-mobile-vs-sprint-5g-we-compare-their-peak-speeds/ https://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-vs-at-t-vs-t-mobile-vs-spr... (Although this article is old enough things may have changed)

swiley 6y ago

Honestly, safety isn't my biggest complaint about 5g. We already have a wireless standard for short range networks: WiFi. It supports the same bands and multi antenna beam forming techniques. 5G means replacing open WiFi networks with networks controlled by a handful of companies paying fees to one or two equipment manufactures and pretty much exclusively Qualcomm in the US. Yes, the same Qualcomm that makes Android such a shitty platform by not publish GPU specs/driver code so you can throw out the broken code from the OEM.

1241rtfasfasf 6y ago
I haven't seen use case proposals where 5G replaces home WiFis. It's often referred to as replacing the last mile to your home (i.e., your home router would talk 4G/5G to the operator and create a WiFi in your home). Also, some "small cell" approaches use WiFi and only do the access management using the mobile network. WiFi on the other hand doesn't have any approaches for wide coverage, cell handover, or any kind of IoT applications. I'd expect that smaller manufacturers emerge, especially for niche use cases outside consumer mass-markets.