---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <93c44a02-75d8-967f-5edc-94b760128f3e@ionary.com> Date: 24 Jul 2019 10:08:57 -0400 From: "Fred Goldstein" <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: The 5G Health Hazard That Isn't On 7/22/2019 10:19 PM, Naveen Albert wrote: > ... >> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/science/5g-cellphones-wireless-cancer.html > Actually, this sensationalist piece is the real wolf crier, This > article has been debunked numerous times by numerous people since it > was published, and criticizes actual sound science while offering > little more than empty, baseless, and/or false claims throughout. Well, no. Mr. Albert is simply indulging in radiophobia, unsubstantiated fearmongering that justifies itself by repeating an echo chamber of pseudoscience. And he tops it off by calling The New York Times a fake news source, while taking Russia Today, a genuine fake news site whose mission is literally to disrupt western civilization, as gospel. I am no fan of "5G", which I put in scare quotes not because the technology is scary to health, but because it's not really a thing. Rather, 5G refers to pretty much everything the mobile phone industry has done since 4G LTE reached a certain stable milestone (5=3D4+1). The network-infrastruture manufacturers need to hype something in order to get the carriers to keep buying, now that their LTE upgrades are complete and, frankly, working pretty well. 5G itself, then, is really a set of tweaks to LTE, not all new technology. It has two major new capabilities. One is the ability to connect to the User Equipment on two bands simultaneously. The other is to operate over a wider range of frequencies, including upper microwave and millimeter wave bands. The FCC has been busily auctioning off upper microwave bands, as if they could be used for 5G mobile. They can't, because they're so sensitive to blockage that they only really work with rather literal line of sight, and not over much distance. But the FCC wants to take these off the market so they're not available for regular, first-come first-serve private microwave licensing. Some telcos might use them in some dense urban areas for short-haul (<200 meters) last-mile fixed service delivery. If there are no trees in the way. Early "5G" phones appear to use some of these upper microwave bands, like 28 GHz. This take a lot of battery power and the circuits tend to overheat. And it only works when you basically stand right in front of the cell site. So it's basically a farce, but it does allow the FCC to take all sorts of anticompetitive actions using 5G as an excuse. The "race to 5G" is a hot topic too, though it's not clear how it is a race when what happens in China has no impact on us. But it helps Ericsson and Huawei sell equipment. There are no American companies left in the mobile infrastructure business. The alleged risk is again that of any radio waves. The debunked study showed that millimeter wave signals cause more organ cell damage than lower frequency signals. The debunking points out that skin attenuates higher frequencies more than lower ones, so millimeter waves mostly don't reach the organs, making it safer. The fearmongers ignore that. More importantly, though, is the matter of signal strength. We are constantly exposed to radio waves, from broadcasts, from mobile devices, from the sun (what do you think radio telescopes see?). The question is what is dangerous. There is no evidence that radio waves cause the kind of harm that, say, gamma rays cause. Their main effect is heating. And meaningful heating takes substantial power -- that's what a microwave oven does. The riskiest sources of microwaves for most people are their oven (if the door seals are not clean) and their cell phone. Of any G. And that's because cell phones are used right next to your head. Radio waves follow the inverse square law -- twice the distance, a quarter the power. Another fun fact of cell phones is that they used "closed loop power control". That is, the base station always tells the mobile device what power level to use, up to its limit (usually 200 mW). The idea is for all mobile units to be the same strength at the base station, whether close or far. So if the device is close -- hears it loudly -- then its power is lowered. Only if it has a weak signal (poor path) does it use full power. So if you want to minimize the power at your head, where it matters, you want to be near a base station, not keep them far from you. And this applies to all "Gs". One might quibble with FCC safety standards, though they are based on science. But the general rules of radio propagation always apply. Fearmongers selling nostrums (and there's an industry there, selling gullible folks crap like bracelets that are supposed to protect you from deadly Wi-Fi and "earth rays") should be seen for what they are. 5G is not the great thing that its backers claim, but not because it's deadly; it's really just more of the same. -- Fred R. Goldstein k1io fred "at" ionary.com +1 617 795 2701 ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20190724202758.GA21293@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 20:27:58 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: What's Eating Your Comcast Data Cap? Comcast has put its proverbial finger to the wind to define an "appropriate" data cap it declares "generous," regardless of how subjectively random that cap happens to be. Although 1,000 GB - a terabyte - usage allowance represents a lot of internet traffic, more and more customers are finding they are flirting with exceeding that cap, and Comcast has never been proactive about regularly adjusting it to reflect the reality of rapidly growing internet traffic. That means customers must protect themselves by checking their usage and take steps if they are nearing the 1 TB limit. https://stopthecap.com/2019/07/23/whats-eating-your-comcast-data-cap/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <841ECEC6-1B9D-4D7C-A8E9-DCB25AE3E4E8@roscom.com> Date: 23 Jul 2019 16:25:19 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data To take back control of their online data, a hearty few are trying to eliminate all things Google. It's no easy task - Google has the most popular search engine, browser and mapping software. What it takes to be a never-Googler. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/23/never-googlers-web-users-take-ultimate-step-guard-their-data/ ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Thu, 25 Jul 2019