I’d recommend against discussing technical things with people who just believe random weird shit they read on the Internet. You can’t win with arguments, because they didn’t need them to believe in cancer rays in the first place.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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I wrote my Bachelor's thesis on the software that runs 5G networks.
4G (speaking about LTE) has been wildly successful since its introduction in 2009. It replaced the circuit switched network used in 2G and 3G with Evolved Packet Core, a network that delivered network packets directly to the phone using real IP addresses.
Now, a decade after 4G's release, technology has progressed a lot. What telecom companies call 5G are a collection of new technologies that are all coming out around the same time, but are mostly compatible with existing 4G phones and networks.
The big new technology is "5G new radio" (5G NR), which is a new optimized radio protocol that allows for faster speeds, lower power consumption, and the ability to use new extremely high bandwidth frequencies in the 50-400GHz range, on top of the existing 600-6000MHz range. Cellphones say that they're connected to 5G when they start speaking with the 5G NR protocol. I believe telecom companies can support 5G NR just by upgrading the cell tower antennas.
These newer antennas supporting this new radio protocol are also being built with beamforming tech, which allows towers to electronically "point" the antennas at nearby phones, improving signal.
Finally, the big upgrade underneath the surface is the migration to virtualize network functions, which is allowing telecom companies to run their networks using flexible lightweight computers inside the towers, instead of big bulky pre-built appliances in some big datacenter. This makes the network backbones faster, easier to program, and makes them cheaper for telecom companies to build out.
Wikipedia gives a bit of a summary about these features here:
Thank you so much!
The part about beamforming also has another side effect that all the conspiracy theorists won't like. Although they can likely spin this in some other sinister way. Beamforming allows for essentially less electromagnetic pollution than previous Generations. Because it directs the energy more directly where it's needed instead of just broadcasting it everywhere. Way more efficient. Although I can already see how the Conspiracy nuts start shouting that this will be used to shoot concentrated beams of 5G on the enlightened people...
There are two 5Gs. There is Sub-6GHz-5G and Milimetrewave 5G.
Sub-6GHz-5G operates in roughly the same frequency ranges as 4G. Radiation-wise it is pretty much exactly the same as 4G. The cell size is similar, the frequences are similar, range and object penetration are similar. What is different is that 4G was built upon 3G which was built upon 2G, which means, that 4G has very complicated and inefficient signaling and overhead compared to 5G, where they decided to declutter the protocol and make the management much easier. The main benefits of Sub-6GHz-5G are for the network operator, since it makes management so much easier. The only really meaningful advantage for the users is, that 5G allows to allocate a higher bandwidth to a single user in case no other users in the cell need it right now. This is only very rarely the case, so in most cells this won't happen often.
mmWave-5G is a different beast. It operates on frequequencies between 24-100Ghz, which is more than the max 6GHz that the otherr kind of 5G runs on. These higher frequencies are quite different. First, hardly anything else uses it, so the frequency bands are mostly empty, so you can reach incredible speeds on these bands. The problem is, there is a reason why hardly anything uses it. The range is super low (about the same range as a good wifi access point) and the object penetration is abysmal. A sheet of paper can block the 5G signal. Or a tree. Or your hand. Or your head.
So if you hold your phone the wrong way, or turn the wrong way, or have hair that covers your phone, you might not get reception at all.
So the use cases for mmWave-5G in the real world are incredibly limited, and they are usually used in a few hotspots in a larger city, just so the network providers can advertise their services as "Up to (huge number) GBit/second".
So now for the radiation argument: Both kinds of 5G are solidly inside the non-ionizing-radiation-territory, so the only thing you can do is heat something up. And heat is something you feel, so if it doesn't burn you it doesn't harm you. Other than e.g. UV radiation, which is ionizing and causes skin cancer, and yet people willingly expose themselves to UV in intensities that are 10 000x or more than what they expose themselves to 5G. They even expose themselves on purpose to UV to the point that radiation sickness (=sunburn) sets in, but the same people are afraid of 5G. Go figure.
But to really disspell the fear of 5G: Sub-6-5G is radiation-wise identical to 3G, 4G and WiFi. mmWave-5G is so weak in object penetration that it gets blocked by a piece of paper or the outer layer of the skin. And the radiation exposure is incredibly tiny.
Wow this was incredibly helpful! Thank you so much!
No problem! Sadly, from my experience, if someone actually fears 5G, they are usually long gone. Any sane person would understand that (a) if mobile phone radiation would be actually harmful, we'd see massive amounts of damage already since over the last 30 years we went from no phones to everyone has a phone on them and (b) if it was harmful, it wouldn't be legal.
So people who still think that "This iteration of mobilie phone signal will surely kill us", are usually not part of the rational world anymore.
Another interesting fact: Phone signals need to make the trip both ways, from the tower to your phone and back. Signals lose their strength by the qube. So in 10m distance, the signal only has 1/101010 = 1/1000 of the strength as it does in 1m distance. In 100m distance we are talking about 1/1 000 000 of the strength as in 1m distance.
So if you are afraid of the radiation, it should be the radiation of your phone, not the radiation of the tower that you need to be afraid of.
So logically, in that case, don't own a phone and you are fine. But that is something even hardcore anti-5G folks aren't willing to sacrifice.
Also: Older phones and older standards (2G/3G) have a much higher radiation output than newer ones. Reason being that outputting radiation means consuming battery life, so the phone makers try to optimize the radios to output as little radiation as possible to conserve battery.
Another thing regarding the singal roundtrip: The farther away the tower is, the more radiation output from your phone is required to keep the signal. So shorter distances to the next tower means you are exposed to much less radiation coming from your phone.
Lastly: To believe that 5G, vaccinations or any of that stuff is harmful means that you have to believe that the government purpously harms the inhabitants and lies about it. This in turn means that every expert is part of the conspiracy and any evidence is a lie. If you are so far gone from reality, there is no argument that can bring you back.
There is overlap with some of the community members believing in 2 suns so not all of them will be open to logic. I figure it will be nice to actually have an understanding of the thing I support so I can answer questions more confidently.
It always gets me how these people will get xrays, go through airport security, own smart phones, use induction stoves, microwaves etc but when you try and improve the infrastructure they complain about, suddenly you're Big Tech and trying to kill them with secret deep state Gs.
Totally agree, totally makes sense.
I also like the "radiation blocking stickers" that some of them put on their phone. The phone doesn't create radiation for fun. Radiation = reception. So if the stickers would actually work, the phone wouldn't have reception.
I once was forced by a friend to attend a Tupperware party, and the salesperson there showed off a microwave pressure cooker (an inherently dumb idea). One of the attendants asked about the radiation, and the salesperson was like "It totally blocks the radiation, so there is no radiation on the food", and I was like "And how is it going to heat the food then?"
Oh man... that's a new one. I should get into sticker making
Also fun: People sell waste paper baskets as "anti-radiation faraday cages" for wifi routers. And the reviews are full of people complaining that the signal is now crap.
Many thanks
I would explain it in terms of Wifi and speed and reach. Wifi is faster than 4G but has shorter reach. 5G is in between. That's why more antennas have to be built for 5G.