Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0xDEEPFAC | Hacker News Reader

Ignoring the potential health concerns. 5G antennas need to be placed on every single city block low and close to people to be effective - so it is hopeless for a majority of the US not directly in a city unless we litter the entire suburbs and small towns in addition to our cities with Huawai equipment.

And again, what is all of this for? Faster downloads of instagram photos? I don't get it. How about starting with infrastructure projects that matter like fiber - some people in the US only have DSL as an option...

Following the Chinese WHO debacle and how much faith I have in the phone industry I, personally, don't believe the hype and the studies they produce even if they deem it "safe."

View on HN

Actually, because of the low propagation properties, mm-wave 5G network is mostly fiber. The signal can only travel a few hundred feet, the rest is fiber. Why ? The most expensive part of fiber is the last few hundred feet. Also, the antennas being so small, don't necessarily have to be on a large pole. Also they use phased array antennas that electronically steer the signal so they can be mounted on light poles that might sway a little but it can be compensated for. BTW, Huawei equipment is not being used by any of the major carriers in the US (or any that I am aware of). The mm-wave signal is safer than wifi. Remember, you microwave oven using 2.4Ghz to cook your food, same band as wifi.

So, what you're saying is that 5g is basically an improved wifi? (Shortish range so uses another transport, very good throughput)

Could someone explain why the sibling comment is flagged and dead? I don't have any background in this area, so it's not obvious to me what's wrong with the comment.

It looks like just a list of papers, almost definitely either irrelevant or bad science. This kind of thing is very common and it’s not worth the time to investigate it.

If someone wants to show that 5g is dangerous they need to first demonstrate they understand why those claims aren’t taken seriously.

>The mm-wave signal is safer than wifi.

This is completely not true, and the foregoing article ignores numerous aspects of the potential health concerns of millimeter wave radiation in the 95Ghz area of the spectrum.

1) 95Ghz millimeter wave provably and without question has the potential for adverse affects on human tissue. Active Denial Systems (https://jnlwp.defense.gov/About/Frequently-Asked-Questions/A... for example) use 95Mhz directed energy for so-called Non Lethal Weapons technology. This is not complex.

2) Based on poor signal propagation and inability to permeate through common materials used in most building construction, 95Ghz picocells are being deployed every couple hundred feet in areas with large buildings and superstructures. This is not something that can be opted out of, especially in densely populated urban areas.

3) The adverse effects of electromagnetic fields on biological tissue was extensively researched by Dr. Robert Becker and documented in his published scientific research as well as his book The Body Electric. All of this information was suppressed by academia and big pharma, he proved exponentially increased cellular mitosis rates, damage to DNA, and a host of other ill effects from EM fields at powers significantly less than today's mobile telephones and WiFi access points. There is a massive profit motive associated with mobile telephony, the Federal Communication Commission is one of the only, if not the only, self-funded government agencies in the U.S. and if you've ever consulted for them it shows. Armani suits, 7 Series in the parking lot, the FCC has loads of cash from spectrum allocation auctions where they receive billions of dollars for each chunk of the spectrum they auction off for use by mobile carriers.

Millimeter wave 5G should be completely stopped in its tracks until conclusive studies have been conducted. Hundreds if not thousands of scientists at this point have signed public letters to this effect, I am really surprised this is even a 5G positive topic of discussion on YC.

> 1) 95Ghz millimeter wave provably and without question has the potential for adverse affects on human tissue. Active Denial Systems (https://jnlwp.defense.gov/About/Frequently-Asked-Questions/A.... for example) use 95Mhz directed energy for so-called Non Lethal Weapons technology. This is not complex.

At what energy levels?

You can use a really bright light as a denial system, but that doesn't mean a flashlight can harm someone.

Any system that relies purely on heat to cause problems does not demonstrate that the frequencies are unsafe.

Again, as mentioned in my previous comment Becker's scientific work with The Body Electric documented numerous instances of cellular mitosis being accelerated and other ill effects from electromagnetic fields much less powerful than what we are holding up to our ears these days.

These 5G picocells are phased antenna arrays that can perform beamforming with pinpoint directed energy. And they are coupled with Software Defined Radios that can be remotely upgraded with firmware updates.

Hitler almost took over the world, and we have significantly more advanced technology available to us these days since World War II. Depending on the RF front end of these picocells, what's to stop some potential next world dictator from turning all of these picocells into a global active denial system to prevent riots and civil unrest - because provably 95Ghz is already being used for ADS - especially if the picocell output power can be controlled via firmware update?

So here's your question back to you: how much output power are these picocells actually capable of?

And with active beamforming capability, what's to stop a government from turning these picocells into highly directional ADS nodes to prevent riots and protests?

These things are popping up next to tunnels and public transit ingress/egress in NYC, and public officials are refusing to comment on what they are being used for other than "it's something to do with Homeland Security":

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/09/27/mysterious-metal-tow...

All of this SDR-enabled 5G picocell gear from all vendors need to go through extensive teardown analysis from the technical community, to determine what amplifier components are being used. China wouldn't think for two seconds about rolling out that type of capability in their country to prevent civil unrest, and having remotely-upgradable amplifiers on every light pole that provably can interact with human tissue doesn't sound like a fun future to me.

They'd have to be massively overbuilt to provide enough power for ADS. If there's any evidence of that, I'll be worried.

Just like I could be worried that street lights are going to be used like spotlights, but I'm not.

>Remember, you microwave oven using 2.4Ghz to cook your food, same band as wifi.

Which was chosen because of the size factor. Other frequencies would also be able to cook food.

> so it is hopeless for a majority of the US not directly in a city

~80% of the US population is urban, ~70% in large urbanized areas and ~10% in smaller urban clusters, per the census bureau. A majority of the US is not in a city only by empty land area, not people.

Which isn't to say that it isn't important to also have solutions that work for the other 20%, but things that are only valuable for the urban 80% remain quite valuable.

The person you're responding to wasn't saying that the majority of the US is not directly in a city, but that 5G won't be useful for the majority of that subset

A third of the population isn't something to disregard. Their suggestion is that a holistic approach could be taken. But maybe this isn't too much an issue of resource allocation (ie 5G deployment may not be zero sum with fiber deployment, particularly if the considered regions are disjoint)

Oh well, hopefully Starlink or something can help raise the floor on rural internet access quality

I don't think 5G will be restricted to cities at all. There are some carriers who are already providing pretty good service to rural areas using sub6 fixed wireless. The N77 auction (3.7 - 4.2Ghz) I think will open up some very good competitive rural options. mm-wave will probably be too expensive in most cases but not necessarily always. The reason is because mm-wave being so fiber intensive. There is often a misconception that fiber is more expensive to deploy in rural areas but often the opposite is the case. Rural areas tend to have fewer regulations and restrictions that make deploying fiber a lot less expensive on a per mile basis that in cities. It's just that cities have more potential customers so it is the obvious first place to deploy. Although it will take longer to get there, I believe that fiber will work its way to more rural areas over time.

> I don't think 5G will be restricted to cities at all. There are some carriers who are already providing pretty good service to rural areas using sub6 fixed wireless.

That's a true statement but most uses of "5G" are talking about mm-wave. There's no question that lower frequencies, already in use for 4G or adjacent to those, will get the evolutionary bump to 5G.

And don't forget to consider the need/benefit side. If your 2-7GHz towers won't be saturated, even a free pile of mm-wave antennas isn't worth the maintenance costs.

It's fortunate that those who live in urban areas never leave those urban areas.

You might slightly misunderstand what 5G is because all everybody talks is mm Waves.

5G spectrum covers low-band and-mid band spectrum from 1G through 4G LTE frequencies. Then there is this new high-band. First 5G installations are deployed into new high-band.

5G installations in countryside will be low band that is more efficient than 4G/LTE. You can have _less_ base stations than LTE, not more in the low-band. 5G NR is more efficient radio interface in all bandwidths.

Completely not true. 5G is picocell deployment due to 95Ghz millimeter wave. There will be thousands of these things in each town, everywhere.

There won't be many picocell stations deployed in the countryside I'd guess? The first tree would eat the signal and we have a lot of trees here. No, it'll be using the same bands as 3G/4G with a different protocol. Those picocells are for use in densely built areas with lots of people and not that many trees but also lots of walls.

This. Once people realize that 5G needs to be INSTALLED EVERYWHERE they are going ask why we are building all of this... especially when 4G was fast enough for nearly everything.

It seems that the most cost effective method is to use direct line of sight wireless transceiver using whatever which then does the last mile to 4G.

This whole 5G push is a solution looking for a problem.

5G is a protocol upgrade.

You can upgrade 2G bands to 5G: massive coverage but without the shitty 2G protocols.

You can use 4G bands for 5G, and for 4G smartphones it will still look like 4G.

And finally, there's the possibility for low-range cells at very high frequencies. One possibility of many.

There is no need to re-build all the infrastructure. In many cases, you push a firmware update.

The obvious use case is stations, stadiums, and plazas, where there's a huge number of people in a single 4g cell who get terrible service.

I don't imagine the network as a whole will upgrade to 5g-only.

As for radio safety: anyone talking about the towers is underinformed. If there is a risk it's from the high power TX next to your head - see EU "SAR" limits.

> I don't imagine the network as a whole will upgrade to 5g-only.

5G only is fine, as it encompasses more modes of operation than just the millimetre-wave model.

I see your point, personally if I go to a conference, stadium, or concert I am not there to look at my phone or answer email though xD

When attending a tech conference, I’m frequently on my phone or laptop, either to follow along with a specific topic being discussed or to do some other work in the downtime.

That can often be accommodated quite well by conference WiFi though.

Lots of conferences regard WiFi as a basic, critical technology to provide to the attendees, on the level of catering and toilets.

The wireless companies will most definitely go to all 5G, but not necessarily mm-wave. 5Gnr will be used for sub6 and will have a lot of benefits over 4G primarily lower latency due to the 100us TTI.

>"And again, what is all of this for? Faster downloads of instagram photos? I don't get it. How about starting with infrastructure projects that matter like fiber - some people in the US only have DSL as an option..."

It's all about latency. Current 4G tech is ~50ms at best. 5G is <5ms. That opens up a whole new class of real time applications for mobile devices. Not to mention that omnipresent 5G would obliviate the need for residential fiber and be much cheaper/easier to deploy at scale.

Talk to me when my mobile plan has unlimited data.

Until then I can only see 5G hype as pure marketing from the telecom industry.

The latency advertisement in 5G is only the latency between your device and the base station you are connected to.

LTE is already in the <10ms area, so expect a real world latency improvement of about ~5ms.

While mostly not caring about anything wireless/mobile at all:

Do you see street lights as "littering", too? Or the countless satellite dishes?

Now for something really evil, just use traffic signs as beamforming antenna arrays :-)

> Do you see street lights as "littering", too?

Yes, actually. Light pollution is a real problem. Have you seen as many fireflies lately?

That's not what I meant to ask, just the visibilty of those artificial poles all around.

Regarding the fireflies. Not sure, think about 5 to 6 years ago maybe, and in about the same interval in the times before that. They are uncommon here, or have been on their path to extinction back from my early childhood.

Back to your question: There are ways to make them less polluting, by ensuring they only illuminate what should be illuminated, by using the right spectrum, by switching them on demand only, and so on.

I'm very aware of that aspect. But again, that's not what i meant to ask.

Why is this less reasonable than having wifi in nearly every home? Mentioning Instagram photos is not a strong argument for fast internet access not being a valuable component of infrastructure.

> what is all of this for? Faster downloads of instagram photos?

It’s almost like saying “640kb of memory will be enough for everyone”. :) Instagram, YouTube, and a wealth of other apps which are a large part of our lives now were enabled largely by 3G/4G — speed of data transfer over GPRS/EDGE was just abysmal. And I can’t even imagine what kind of apps we’ll have with lower latencies and higher data transfer rates of 5G.

> And again, what is all of this for?

The "crowded stadium" justification is BS, it's all about IoT.

Companies want to put a cell radio in every appliance you own, so they can collect telemetry and possibly send you ads. Some high value consumer products, particularly cars, are already doing this. And of course many other products are already using wifi, but in that case the user can simply choose to not enter their wifi password, denying their "smart" TV the ability to spy on them. Using cell radios takes this control away from the user, but getting that many more devices connected to cell networks will require new infrastructure that can handle the scale. Enter 5G.

I mean, I'm literally sitting about 0.5m away from my WiFi router which supposedly can transmit at like 1.9Gbps, and that has never been any discussion. Like the author said - these waves are just so weak they aren't doing anything to your body, not now, not in a 100 years. It's not exactly rocket science.

Edit: I do agree that I literally don't see any point at all. 4G is fast enough for absolutely everything even including 4K streaming, and doesn't require a tower built on top of my house

> I mean, I'm literally sitting about 0.5m away from my WiFi router which supposedly can transmit at like 1.9Gbps, and that has never been any discussion.

Did you have any say in whether you installed a Wifi router in your home?

> Like the author said - these waves are just so weak they aren't doing anything to your body, not now, not in a 100 years.

People say lots of things, but sometimes the things people say are not true. This, combined with various other variables, seems to leave many people with suspicious feelings about some societal initiatives, not just 5G.

That’s easy — they are going to put cable out of business. You’ll have fixed wireless internet and tv. Most of the consumer protections remaining for internet don’t apply to wireless service.

Unlike cable companies, the “national emergency” and need to “catch up” to the Chinese allows the telcos to drop poles anywhere and avoid pole rent, etc.

It’s probably one of the grossest examples of corruption at the federal level, which is a high bar.

A telco can not "drop a pole" anywhere for free. There is a fee paid to either co-locate on existing or to place a new pole. All cities and counties have right of way fees that all carriers pay to use the right of way.

Obviously it isn’t free, but it’s helluva a lot cheaper than renting pole space for the 5G equipment.

In my city, 90% of the 5G poles are new, some feet away from existing poles. Federal rules give the locality no power to deny placement, only to make limited cosmetic changes, and only in a period of 30 days or less.

Depends on the frequency used.

Why are you putting your energy into deciding who to trust instead of understanding how it works?

Isn't that how research is done? If a tobacco company publishes research explaining how tobacco promotes lung health and people start reporting their "research" as fact wouldn't that be a problem?

There is opposing research with different conclusions that 5G may not be so safe, which I am sure many people choose to ignore since they contradict the WHO, and TV media reports.

Its about sources and authority. Finding the truth is difficult.

> Its about sources and authority.

This is a simplistic and lazy when it comes to something that is built on well understood scientific principles. This line of thinking is what gives us flocks of people believing in easily debunked conspiracy theories. People who don't understand gas compression leading to condensation believe in chemtrails because a false authority tells them to and people who don't understand electromagnetic radiation search for an authority to tell them what conclusion to come to and reject in depth explanations.

Much of medicine ends up being built on statistics because of the difficulty of drilling down to the underlying mechanics of what happens inside a living body. Statistics can be easily abused since most of the flaws end up being about what is not said and not measured.

Electromagnetic radiation comes out of light bulbs at even higher frequencies. No one seems to worry about halogen lights and heat lamps.

5G is a broad spectrum of frequencies, what specific frequency and amplitude are you worried about?

> This line of thinking is what gives us flocks of people believing in easily debunked conspiracy theories.

I suggest you consider the possibility that language like this may do more to increase the magnitude of "conspiracy theorists" than your claim. The actual answer to the question is not known, and I suspect there's a decent chance that you don't actually know much about the people you're criticizing.

Depending on the subject it could take years to understand everything that goes into an explanation to make sure you didn't miss anything. At some point you have to assume certain things are true for the sake of argument.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com