Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Can you hear me now? No? If that’s a 5G phone, come closer.
All television ads annoy me, some infuriate me, but the one they started airing a couple weeks ago induced hyperventilation. It was T-Mobile, announcing their inauguration of the country’s first and only 5G cellphone network. In took this personally because I have said repeatedly here that this was never gonna happen. Was I (gasp) wrong? Or are they lying? You want three guesses?
As it has been hyped for lo, these many months, 5G (or fifth generation, aka the Next Big Thing) cell phones use extremely high frequency radio waves, called “millimeter waves” that permit data to be transferred at extremely high rates of speed. There is no evidence at all that the downtrodden masses are crying out for more smartphone bandwidth with which to watch kitten on Facebook, but the marketers are convinced they can make us want it, and spend heavily to get it.
The marketers are desperate. Global sales of smartphones have been declining for a year and a half (there was a slight upward tick in Q4 2019) despite blandishments including three (count ‘em three!!) cameras per phone, foldable screens (that break almost immediately) and bigger batteries. No? Okay, how about 5G?
The reason I have said frequently that significant 5G networks are never going to happen is that there are some problematic things about mmWaves, including:
- They are extremely short range. Anything like full coverage requires a transmitter every thousand feet. As far as I’m concerned, game over right there. And even with that density of transmitters the signal is easily blocked by walls, hands, etc.
- They may constitute a health hazard. They are close to the wavelength used in microwave ovens. While the mmWaves won’t cook us or pop our popcorn, Scientific American reports that more than 500 peer-reviewed studies have found “harmful biologic or health effects” from exposure to radio frequency radiation.
- Handsets capable of handling mmWaves require so much power that they need a really large and bulky battery to get through the day, and when in use they overheat. A lot. As one reviewer put it, “Probably not hot enough to ignite your battery (probably), but enough to generate a definite burning sensation in your pants pockets.” The review went on to observe that “the handset industry is using a tried-and-tested method for dealing with this problem – ignoring it and hoping it goes away.”
So how it it, you may well ask, that T-Mobile claims to be operating a fully realized national 5G network? Have they solved all these problems? Installed all these transmitters? Or are they lying? You don’t get three more guesses.
Turns out there are two bands of frequencies identified by whoever the authorities are as 5G, low-band and high-band. The high-band frequencies are the ones everyone has been talking about as enabling the features of 5G. Well, T-Mobile has used the low-band frequencies, which travel much farther but do not have anything like the bandwidth of mmWaves. In fact, most of what T-Mobile is calling its 5G network is operating at 4G speeds or even slower. In New York City, not an inconsequential market for whatever this is, the T-Mobile “5G” network tested at download speeds of 28 Mbps while the standard 4G networks offered 128 Mbps.
In the America of Donald Trump and High Tech and Big Oil etcetera, if you want something to be so, you simply announce that it is so, and demand compensation for providing it. Consequences? There are no consequences. Consequences, like laws and taxes, are for little people.
“Cell Phone Antenna Tower Blue Sky #CellPhoneTower #CellPhoneAntenna #CreativeCommons pics by Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel and JeepersMedia on YouTube.” by JeepersMedia is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Meanwhile…
https://modernfarmer.com/2019/12/monsanto-attempts-defense-that-would-negate-all-glyphosate-causes-cancer-lawsuits/
Roundup is the brand name for a broad-spectrum herbicide called glyphosate. Roundup is hugely successful, used everywhere from backyard gardens to thousand-acre monocrop operations, but it’s been repeatedly linked to cancer, most importantly in a World Health Organization 2015 classification.
Monsanto has vigorously argued that the link is inconclusive, and that’s sort of true, though much of the research saying it’s a carcinogen was funded by Monsanto itself. Monsanto and Bayer have engaged in widespread attempts to defame and cause doubt about the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, which made that 2015 classification.
In any case, one of the first lawsuits to go to court was the case of Edwin Hardeman, who sued Monsanto alleging that his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was caused by glyphosate, and that the company deliberately misled the public about the carcinogenic effects of the product. The initial hearing found a jury award Hardeman $80 million; it was reduced a few months later by a trial judge to $25 million.
Monsanto—we’re referring to the company that way because glyphosate is so deeply connected to Monsanto, though the actual entity in court is now Monsanto’s owner, Bayer—has vowed to appeal all decisions that go against it. This week, the company submitted a filing in court, arguing that the case never should have been brought to trial in the first place.
The crux of Monsanto’s argument is that the Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly stated that glyphosate is not carcinogenic or a risk to human health. Therefore, had Monsanto included a label about glyphosate potentially causing cancer, it would have been in violation of the EPA, and thus Monsanto cannot be held responsible for following the law.
The Trump administration has announced its support for Monsanto’s court challenge.
If this challenge is successful, it will create a precedent that will be extremely difficult to overcome; if Monsanto was legally unable to warn customers about the carcinogenic nature of glyphosate, how can they be held responsible for that? This of course does not address the basic issue of whether glyphosate can in fact cause cancer, nor does it address the decades-long campaign to discredit opposing research, but none of that might matter.
The Orange One thinks glyphosate is healthier than mom’s apple pie. I’m sure he will give his blessing to 5G if it keeps the asset inflation zombie walking a while longer.
“…asset inflation zombie…”
Classic. Only needs to keep it upright till next November! No small order, though.
Thanks for the link the other day, btw.
“And even with that density of transmitters the signal is easily blocked by walls, hands, etc.”
vs
“They may constitute a health hazard.”
you contradict yourself. if they are blocked by our hands, and skin (as research shows), then they are NOT a health hazard. and remember, these are NON IONIZING radio waves.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/science/5g-cellphones-wireless-cancer.html
The Scientific American says 1) “more than 240 scientists who have published peer-reviewed research on the biologic and health effects of nonionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for stronger exposure limits.”
And 2) “Millimeter waves are mostly absorbed within a few millimeters of human skin and in the surface layers of the cornea. Short-term exposure can have adverse physiological effects in the peripheral nervous system, the immune system and the cardiovascular system. The research suggests that long-term exposure may pose health risks to the skin (e.g., melanoma), the eyes (e.g., ocular melanoma) and the testes (e.g., sterility).”
Contrary to the New York Times piece you cited — the industrial Times is increasingly an embarrassment to those of us who remember professional journalism — fears of EMF are hardly based on a “single scientist with a single chart.”
And anyone with common sense can tell you that if it being blocked by a hand, or other skin encased anatomy, this can’t be a good thing. The radiation is not simply reflecting off (and nothing reflects 100% either), the energy is being absorbed. You know, like a microwave oven.
Us lowly electrical engineers work in the frequency domain because “that’s where the fun is”. If we are transmitting energy in a spectrum where biological absorption (or filtering) can occur we are very concerned. This will not turn out well.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/5g-underwhelms-in-its-first-big-test-11577788203
I don’t own a smart phone and I don’t get into airplanes. Why would I? I’ve never texted. My customers, relatives, friends and associates either phone me on my land line (and record a message if I’m not available) or email me. When I travel, I rent a Korean car – Japanese cars are too over-techy and American cars are junk. I know, I’ve rented them all. My daughter-in-law calls me a Luddite. I wear the label proudly…So there!