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Comment by vfc1 | Hacker News Reader

> Cancer is not the only risk as there is considerable evidence that RFR causes neurological disorders and reproductive harm, likely due to oxidative stress.

I mean it can't be good all this radiation exposure. As far as I know, people living near large electrical wire high tension poles are at a higher risk of cancer already.

I think so much can already be done with the network bandwidth we already have available. Just using a better protocol on top of HTTP, like everything switching to HTTP2 should be a huge improvement.

How much bandwidth more do we really need, we have hit the limits in terms of video on what is noticeable by the human eye already.

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> As far as I know, people living near large electrical wire high tension poles are at a higher risk of cancer already.

As far as you know from what? This might sound harsh, but this is just fearmongering.

HV power lines are, in an electrical sense, very far away from you. Even if magnetic radiation had some health effects, (which as far as we know, it doesn't, which is why MRI's are incredibly non-invasive to people without metal implants of some sort), you are not getting any of that from an HV power line.

The only people I know spouting such things are either charlatans^W salesmen trying make a buck or people that have no understanding or training in electricity. It can't "jump out at you". A power line is not a radio.

There are plenty of microwave towers and satellites and cell phones to be irrationally afraid of. But power lines? Like it just screams "I do not understand electricity or am trying to make a buck off those that don't." There's no radiation coming off that power line that gets to you.

> HV power lines are, in an electrical sense, very far away from you

I've seen family houses literally next to high tension poles (not just regular poles, I mean those huge ones many times the height of the house), for example in Portugal.

I don't see any definitive conclusion online for the link between high voltage lines proximity and cancer, but I am not an expert. Seems to me the consensus is far from general.

In the US there is usually a discount on houses bordering those. So the market sees a small difference.

The market is happy to sustain homeopathy and fake Faraday cages for your microwave-based electric and gas meters. Radium used to fetch a high price for its health "benefits"...

I am not sure pointing to random cons for sale on the marketplace really changes the fact that if high voltage power lines are next to your house, it is worth less.

If nothing else, it looks ugly.

Yea, the huge ones, many times the height of the house, are uh, really many times the height of the house above the house. According to [0], the maximum magnetic field from 275kV-400kV overhead power line (this would be measured much closer to the line than you could possibly get to without climbing the towers) is 100uT. Standing next to a running vacuum cleaner about 800uT. A standard clinical MRI is typically 1.5T, so about 10000 times the strength of the power line if you were a lineman sitting next to a live line. Typical field under the line: 3-5 uT. That's standing right under the line. The family underneath the line gets more radiation from leaving the TV on, or god forbid, the wifi or their cell phone.

Consensus is not far from general. You don't have to be an expert. If you are really afraid of radiation, talking about power lines really weakens your case. They do almost nothing compared to normal household appliances we use all the time. The inverse square rule is real.

I think to avoid your best bet would be joining an Amish community. And don't go outside, without covering up. The sun's radiation is like, actually proven to be harmful to skin and DNA, and is many times more powerful. Too bad getting sun is also clinically associated with many health benefits! Oh what will we do...

[0] https://www.nationalgridet.com/document/82871/download

Even if current levels of radiation are harmless, it does not mean that the same applies to 5G.

Studies funded by the 5G industry are 10 times more likely to say there are no side effects on human, which is suspect and an indication that is an attempt to manipulate science going on - https://nutritionfacts.org/video/does-cell-phone-radiation-c...

The leading independent organization on cancer causes says that current cell phones are "possible carcinogens" - https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cell-phone-brain-tumor-risk...

> Even if current levels of radiation are harmless, it does not mean that the same applies to 5G.

Good thing I'm talking about overhead powerlines and not 5G then. Unless your reply was meant for someone else.

Although I believe the chance that 5G is harmful is basically nil, mostly due to my EE degree and a basic understanding of "non-ionizing radiation" and "ionizing radiation", it is probably about 100X more rational than complaining about overhead powerlines.

Seriously I just don't get it what problem do people have with overhead powerlines. Saying overhead powerlines cause cancer is like, on par with calling aircraft contrails "chemtrails" and saying they are part of a nefarious government plot. There are plenty of real nefarious government plots, but you hear people talking again and again about chemtrails because they don't understand aircraft engines or heat or water. Just like there are real issues in the health system, but again and again people cut off the legs of their own argument by going off about overhead powerlines.

Lastly, WTF are those sources? Is nutritionfacts.org a leading independent organization on cancer causes? That is a 5-minute long video of someone doing zoom-highlights on excerpts from studies from 2011. The first comment is someone saying the WHO is bought-out by corporate interests, although, the WHO is like the main ethos argument from the video.

Do you use a cell phone? How do you hide from the other people using their cell phones, or the Wi-Fi rays coming from your computer? If you have a new router, 802.11ad already communicates in the 60Ghz band, that's a pretty big number if big frequency numbers are scary.

> The leading independent organization on cancer causes says that current cell phones are "possible carcinogens"

It is crucial to understand what this actually means. the IARC classifications are valid but — particularly to lay people — incredibly misleading and pretty much useless. All that “possible carcinogen” means is that we haven’t yet collected sufficient evidence to discount harm. It’s not evidence of carcinogenicity at all. If anything it’s the opposite, because it means that, despite the existence of relevant studies, there hasn’t been any consistent demonstration of carcinogenic effect.

Furthermore, IARC only classifies risk itself, not hazard [1], nor dosage effects.

For context, IARC classifies sunlight exposure and processed meat consumption as “definitely carcinogenic” [2]. Despite this, regular exposure to sunlight is crucial for your health, and regular meat consumption is known to have little absolute effect on cancer risk (in other words, although red meat does have an effect, the effect size is tiny).

[1] https://worksmart.org.uk/health-advice/health-and-safety/haz... [2] https://monographs.iarc.fr/list-of-classifications/

> I mean it can't be good all this radiation exposure.

The light bulbs in your home spew out radiation. The heating of your home is all spewing out radiation. "Radiation exposure" is meaningless without considering whether or not radiation at a given wavelength will interact with your body in detrimental ways at the given power levels (of course, if you heat your home too much, or set fire to it, the infrared radiation/heat will kill you; but we don't for that reason conclude heat is inherently bad) or not.

Talking about "radiation exposure" without being specific about those things is as meaningless as suggesting eating is bad for you because some things are toxic.

Some radiation is very bad for you. Some is essential for you to some extent and dangerous for you if you get too much. Some just won't interact with your body in any way that matters.

> As far as I know, people living near large electrical wire high tension poles are at a higher risk of cancer already.

There is some very limited evidence that shows that strong electromagnetic fields may have some limited effect specifically for incidence rates of childhood Leukemia, but notably only at levels found at too few houses for the researchers to get a large enough sample size to be able to draw conclusions either way. In other words: We don't have any clear evidence of that. We have some research that may hint at some link under conditions to rare for us to have anything conclusive.

It's worth researching, because even a very minor increase in risk would have substantial long term effects, but it's not something that really has any relevance to the safety of 5G at all, any more than the fact that too much infrared radiation (heat) will burn you. They're different things.

[1] provides a detailed walk-through of different claims, sources of electromagnetic fields and radiation and what different studies say about this.

[1] https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/r...

There was an increase in leukemia associated with proximity to electricity pylons at one point. They found that it was caused by the herbicides they were using to stop plants from growing up around them and getting in the way of maintenance. Change the herbicide and the leukemia goes away.

The last question is interesting. Our eyes create an image with ~ 1 Gigapixel resolution at frame-rate equivalent > 120 Hz.

For real VR/AR, 5G is not fast enough, would have to work in the THz regime for wireless (wow, nature has a huge bandwidth requirement...). Interesting thing about THz is that most electronic materials breakdown and stop working.

The actual resolution of the human eye is much smaller than that and a lot of our perception is based on interpolation. It's pretty interesting to read up on this.

Yep, this. Each eye is ~1MP, but vibration increases spatial resolution.

Researchers are using this effect now with mobile camera sensors and can image on the 100 nm length scale using interpolation.

Well, without eye tracking you need to render the whole image at peek angular resolution and refresh rate.

Higher bandwidth brings us closer to obviating wired home internet.

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