Fuss over 5G will blow over

Twenty years or more ago I was Canterbury City Council’s lead planner on telecommunications, dealing with all the new phone masts and antennas being installed. At that time the health scare was that the transmissions caused cancer, as if they were some kind of death rays.

To do my job and brief councillors, I had to investigate the issues and look at the scientific evidence, as against the unscientific claptrap that was being bandied about.

Now with 5G and Covid 19 we see history repeating itself, assertions that mobile transmissions cause health issues or affect the immune system do not seem to be supported by any scientific evidence and yet gain credence with a small but gullible section of the public.

What scientists deduced for 3G and 4G would seem to apply to 5G, which essentially uses the same basic system; an antenna transmits a signal looking to see if “there is anyone there”, that signal is a fairly weak pulse by the time it reaches you; your phone replies saying “yes, here I am” with a stronger pulse in order to get the signal strength to reach the antenna. Antenna signals are moderated to the minimum strength necessary to talk to your phone - after all the stronger the signal, the more electricity it uses and the higher the costs involved.

What scientists worked out was that whilst signals could warm cells in the body, the signal strength from the antenna was so low it would have no discernible effect; their precautionary advice was that continuous use of your mobile phone at the side of your head might have a warming effect, although none had been observed and that it might, following the precautionary principle, be wise not to carry your phone in your pocket, close to your reproductive organs. Within a few years, the whole brouhaha had blown over so it will be with 5G in a few years’ time.