5G - health hazard?

Anteayer · 02-04-2019 01:27PM

L1011 wrote: »

The fibre to the base stations will reduce the amount of higher frequency microwave backhaul in time too; if they are truly concerned about that.

Which is also harmless and is generally point-to-point line of sight between the masts. The backhaul microwave links are not designed to broadcast or radiate signals, they're just tightly focused on the dish they're trying to connect to.

Also microwave backhaul has been used in Ireland since the 1960s. Most of our rural telephone network was originally backhauled on microwave links. There would have been huge numbers of point-to-point microwave links in place in the 1980s connecting up remote exchanges. Fibre only really became more dominant in the 1990s as it became cheaper and more people wanted data access with DSL.

A lot of remote areas are still microwave linked and it's certainly still in place as a secondary backup in the event of fibre breakage, you can keep the landline network going. That's what those big towers you'll spot on big ugly buildings in towns and cities are. Unfortunately, the P&T/OPW built some hideous structures. At least the new stuff is generally much less visible.
They're not used as much these days as fibre has replaced them, but microwave backhaul is nothing new.

Boom_Bap · 02-04-2019 01:27PM

When you see the price of 5G capable devices, you'll soon realise it was all a waste of time.

Wanderer78 · 02-04-2019 01:29PM

Boom_Bap wrote:

When you see the price of 5G capable devices, you'll soon realise it was all a waste of time.

Ah it ll be grand, it ll become the norm in time, we ll pay it

Anteayer · 02-04-2019 01:33PM

Boom_Bap wrote: »

When you see the price of 5G capable devices, you'll soon realise it was all a waste of time.

They're already cheap.

If you're buying an top of the line iPhone or a Samsung phone you'll pay big bucks though as you always have, so there's nothing new there.

There's a ton of very well made 4G devices already on the market that are not particularly expensive. Also, the devices you need for accessing the internet over 4G and 5G are very affordable. I mean simple stick-modems have been around for quite a long time now and were extremely affordable.

5G is about speed increases but also about making the internet absolutely ubiquitous and something that's just going to be there in the background and that any device can make use of.

kneemos · 02-04-2019 01:38PM

Will our free data disappear if multiple devices and appliances are going to be using 5G?

Boom_Bap · 02-04-2019 01:44PM

Anteayer wrote: »

They're already cheap.

If you're buying an top of the line iPhone or a Samsung phone you'll pay big bucks though as you always have, so there's nothing new there.

There's a ton of very well made 4G devices already on the market that are not particularly expensive. Also, the devices you need for accessing the internet over 4G and 5G are very affordable. I mean simple stick-modems have been around for quite a long time now and were extremely affordable.

5G is about speed increases but also about making the internet absolutely ubiquitous and something that's just going to be there in the background and that any device can make use of.

Bog standard 4G capable phone - €40
Bog standard 5G capable phone - over €1000

Cheap as chips.

Anteayer · 02-04-2019 01:47PM

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Bog standard 4G capable phone - €40
Bog standard 5G capable phone - over €1000

Cheap as chips.

The technology isn't even on air yet in most countries. Give it a while.

I mean 3G phones were super expensive when they launched first. So were "Digital Phones" when GSM launched first.
All of these things start out with a few products at the high end and early adopters and then go mass market and cheap very quickly.

Boom_Bap · 02-04-2019 01:49PM

Anteayer wrote: »

The technology isn't even on air yet in most countries. Give it a while.

I mean 3G phones were super expensive when they launched first. So were "Digital Phones" when GSM launched first.
All of these things start out with a few products at the high end and early adopters and then go mass market and cheap very quickly.

If we give it a while we're all going to be dead from the 5G frequencies

skallywag · 02-04-2019 01:58PM

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

So why are they complaining about 5G then, UHF TV power outputs are in the region of 100-200kW at main transmitters.

It's exactly the same principle.

If you spent a large amount of time within very close proximity to a bog standard UHF TV transmitter (say 1 metre away just for the sake of discussion, in reality it may be larger of smaller) then the health risk could also be in question.

But in reality this is not the case in day to day life. If you moved 10m away, then the Power of the Radio Waves is 100 times less. If you move 100m away it would be 10,000 times less.

It's nothing to do with the frequency used which is what most folk don't understand, it's the power in the electromagnetic radiation (i.e. the radio wave).

By the way I can recall the exact same hysterical nonsense when MMDS masts first went up in parts of the country to broadcast TV.

roosterman71 · 02-04-2019 02:04PM

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2019/04/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-5g/

02-04-2019 02:15PM

Scientific consensus is that not enough is known about adverse health effects of long-term low-level (ie 'safe' level) RF exposure.

Anteayer · 02-04-2019 02:20PM

The anti-MMDS thing was largely about protecting the concept of rebroadcasting BBC 1, ITV, Channel 4 and in Cork even Sky and Eurosport on UHF without paying any fees to any of the broadcasters whose content they were using and it was funded by charging a small donation to the community.

The cable companies wanted, naturally enough, to crack down on this because it was eating into their profits as they were actually paying royalties to the broadcasters at the time and had licensed MMDS spectrum.

It may have been a community driven initiative to bring multichannel television to areas of the country that had no cable, but it was never 'community television'. It was just community rebroadcasting of UK and satellite services i.e. wireless cable.

So, all of a sudden you had MMDS = microwaves your brain. UHF = lovely traditional technology.

Ultimately it came into the regulated world and then fizzled out when FTA satellite and BBC / C4 content became easily available on Sky's EPG too.

The dynamics around 5G are different though - they're not the big-bad-cable co. up against a little community project.

skallywag · 02-04-2019 02:22PM

Anteayer wrote: »

...and in Cork even Sky and Eurosport...

Yip, that's exactly the mast I had in mind actually, the one on a hill by the airport looking down over the city ...

Anteayer · 02-04-2019 02:28PM

skallywag wrote: »

Yip, that's exactly the mast I had in mind actually, the one on a hill by the airport looking down over the city ...

I'm pretty sure that mast you're thinking of was actually Cork Multichannel's MMDS tower though, which was licensed.
The last MMDS services went off air in 2016 and may have been off air even earlier there.

There are a good few broadcasting masts up around those hills, 2RN (RTE Networks) are up at Spur Hill (one hill over from the airport, in line with Wilton) and there's a cluster of other stuff up near the airport - mostly FM radio these days.

There's also a smaller RTE site at Collins Barracks for UHF TV and FM to get signals into the steep valleys of the city, you have to go from two sides. There are various different small FM sites for RedFM, 96 and some of the community stations and then lots of telecommunications stuff for mobile phones, broadband services and so on.

Cork City's actually notoriously difficult to get signals around due to the topography.

The community TV stuff was more focused away from the city in areas that weren't cabled and to be fair to them they did bring UK television stations to areas that were completely off grid in terms of TV in the 80s

From a technical point of view there was nothing dangerous or strange about MMDS though. It was just quite obsolete in its later years and the licensing was always way too tight - restricting the number of channels to a ridiculously small set.

MMDS subscriber numbers were tiny in the last few years of the service and it was also big waste of usable spectrum that was better suited for broadband - and it caused cross border issues with rollout of 4G/5G broadband on similar frequencies for rural broadband. Irish MMDS sites were impacting areas of Western Wales as well as NI - hence it was scrapped back in 2016 in favour of using the spectrum in accordance with normal European standards. Irish MMDS allocations were quite an odd use of it.

My point is though that these frequencies have been in use for various systems for decades in most cases, and often with far high radiating power than would be used for 4G or 5G sites and back in the day, in an environment where things were not really monitored for RF emissions by any independent agency, yet we were all grand!

Old broadcast tech was pretty crude and brute-force.

skallywag · 02-04-2019 03:05PM

Anteayer wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that mast you're thinking of was actually Cork Multichannel's MMDS tower though, which was licensed.

Yes, that one. There was another cluster of transmitting equipment (different styles of dishes) in a building right beside it as well, for years before it went up. I think they may have been related to Telecom Eireann at the time, though I am not sure.

Anteayer wrote: »

The community TV stuff was more focused away from the city in areas that weren't cabled and to be fair to them they did bring UK television stations to areas that were completely off grid in terms of TV in the 80s

Aha, you are talking about the type of service Carrigaline Community TV broadcasted I think, where you could get the UK channels via a 'rectangular' UHF aerial, albeit with a very poor picture quality at times. Agreed though, the service was good, there was no other show in town back then before Sky came along.

Charles Ingles · 02-04-2019 03:12PM

Mobile phone technology will soon be a thing of the past once people realise the health implications.
We would better off physically and mentally if we returned to old fashioned landlines.
The internet is ruining society

02-04-2019 03:14PM

^ Indeed. With all the actual mental and physical health issues our social and communications technology actually appears to be causing it is a sheer wonder they need to make up fantasies about the EM-waves they demonstrably know little or nothing about to manufacture new ones. Do we not have enough actual issues to focus on without fantasy ones too?

FishOnABike · 02-04-2019 03:34PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You forgot the part that this plot is instigated by an illuminati of lizzard people serving the will of Lucifer.

Fixed that for you ;-)

gmisk · 02-04-2019 03:35PM

Charles Ingles wrote: »

Mobile phone technology will soon be a thing of the past once people realise the health implications.
We would better off physically and mentally if we returned to old fashioned landlines.
The internet is ruining society

In the words of my dad "off with ya then".
Lets be honest/realistic mobile phones aren't going anywhere. In fact technology is just going to be more and more widely used in future.

Why dont you make the first move then? Dust off the landline and ditch all your other technology, blaze a trail, plus there would be no pressure to post about your progress on social media!

02-04-2019 03:41PM

A good friend of mine works in the sector at a very senior level.

5G for mobile phones is technically a rubbish idea. It needs lots of masts and line of sight. Rain interferes with the signal. It will only be used in niche applications. Using lasers would be more effective than 5G as you could transmit far more data over longer distances. You are getting near microwave wavelengths with 5G. I'm no tinfoil hat wearer but I wouldn't be mad about standing in the beam path of a 5G signal.

What will actually happen is the mobile companies will beef up 4G a bit and call it 5G* or something. Or redefine 5G to mean something it currently doesn't

skallywag · 02-04-2019 03:42PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Scientific consensus is that not enough is known about adverse health effects of long-term low-level (ie 'safe' level) RF exposure.

That may be a true statement, in general, but the use case has changed significantly over the last years.

When cell phones first appeared the typical use case was having it right beside your brain. That has changed dramatically in recent times though, with the normal use case now being with the phone held in the hand at a distance from the face that the screen can be read.

There is a huge difference in Radiated RF Power entering your body between these two use cases.

skallywag · 02-04-2019 03:46PM

Deleted User wrote: »

...You are getting near microwave wavelengths with 5G...

Do you realise that 'microwave portion' of the Electromagnetic Spectrum starts at 300 MHz? GSM worked at 900 Mhz ...............

Is it the name 'microwave' that frightens you?

kneemos · 02-04-2019 03:51PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A good friend of mine works in the sector at a very senior level.

5G for mobile phones is technically a rubbish idea. It needs lots of masts and line of sight. Rain interferes with the signal. It will only be used in niche applications. Using lasers would be more effective than 5G as you could transmit far more data over longer distances. You are getting near microwave wavelengths with 5G. I'm no tinfoil hat wearer but I wouldn't be mad about standing in the beam path of a 5G signal.

What will actually happen is the mobile companies will beef up 4G a bit and call it 5G* or something. Or redefine 5G to mean something it currently doesn't

LASERS!!

Christ.

inforfun · 02-04-2019 03:58PM

A 5G tax wll solve this problem
- random politician.

ohnonotgmail · 02-04-2019 04:03PM

Deleted User wrote: »

A good friend of mine works in the sector at a very senior level.

5G for mobile phones is technically a rubbish idea. It needs lots of masts and line of sight. Rain interferes with the signal. It will only be used in niche applications. Using lasers would be more effective than 5G as you could transmit far more data over longer distances. You are getting near microwave wavelengths with 5G. I'm no tinfoil hat wearer but I wouldn't be mad about standing in the beam path of a 5G signal.

What will actually happen is the mobile companies will beef up 4G a bit and call it 5G* or something. Or redefine 5G to mean something it currently doesn't

will it look like this?

gmisk · 02-04-2019 04:06PM

kneemos wrote: »

LASERS!!
Christ.

Superrrrrrstarrrrrr

Finished that for you!

frosty123 · 02-04-2019 04:20PM

I think we should respond to those silly claims on that anti 5G facebook page

Captcha · 02-04-2019 04:21PM

http://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/14753/radiation-concerns-halt-brussels-5g-for-now

Plans for a pilot project to provide high-speed 5G wireless internet in Brussels have been halted due to fears for the health of citizens, according to reports.

Timberrrrrrrr · 02-04-2019 06:09PM

gmisk wrote: »

Superrrrrrstarrrrrr

Finished that for you!

Made me laugh way harder than it should have :pac:

Capt'n Midnight · 02-04-2019 06:19PM

Red_Wake wrote: »

Our local curate says the extra G is for the Gamma radiation they added.

Stuff like that makes me angry.

Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

5G - health hazard?

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