Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 433 posts

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#261

Post by cryptoz »

m12k wrote: post #236
tzs wrote: post #184

Some of the fear of 5G is driven by Russia. RT has run several segments about it. Here are some: 5G Wireless: A Dangerous 'Experiment on Humanity' [1] Could 5G put more kids at risk for cancer? [2] How To Survive Dangers of 5G [3] Cancer risk? 5G wireless speeds could be dangerous [4] ‘Totally insane’: Telecomm Industry ignores 5G dangers [5] According to the New York Times, citing a declassified U.S. intelligence re…

I can't see any way Russia benefits from the 5G hysteria directly. So I wonder if they use this as a way to screen for impressionable people in the West that they can then later use for spreading more 'useful' misinformation?

Russia benefits from all its disinformation projects directly each time the US is distracted or wastes time discussing Russia's talking points. That is one direct negative ongoing consequence from the 5G scare propaganda.

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#262

Post by liability »

cesarb wrote: post #161
chvid wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how people even on a tech website seems to be stuck at "640 KB is enough for everyone". When technology gets a lot cheaper, a lot more powerful, a lot less power consuming, the magic of the market creates completely new categories of use that unlock new demand at consumers. Right now your phone has a sim-card. There might be one in your tablet or your car too. But there is not one in your TV or the lights in yo…

> Right now your phone has a sim-card. [...] But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. You don't need a SIM card or 5G for that. Technologies like 802.15.4, or even simpler, are more than enough.

Ethernet over Powerline LANs could also theoretically be used for those applications, since your TV, lightbulbs, etc will be running off mains power anyway.

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#263

Post by cookingrobot »

reaperducer wrote: post #143
dmix wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear this, sounds cringey. Edit: weird it's a 3 short episode advertisement thing, a "live-read" ad in an interview format. These Pop science people are a great marketing/hype vector. I'm curious how much AT&T paid for this. https://youtu.be/EccF6jR3CFo https://youtu.be/n5AWdU75c1w https://youtu.be/UKaIg102CAU The ATT guy said 5g will solve bike deaths by having your bike talk to the stop light and other…

The ATT guy said 5g will solve bike deaths by having your bike talk to the stop light and other cars, but with machine learning! Reminds me of all the garbage that went around in the transition from AMPS to digital. I had a co-worker tell me her phone was better than mine because mine was only Edge, but hers was PCS! The AT&T guy should have put an "e" in front of it to tap the nostalgia for 90's marketing nonsense.…

Funny you say that - my AT&T phone currently shows that I’m using “5G E”, where the “E” apparently stands for “evolution”, which means while it’s not 5G speed yet it might become that fast in the future. It’s basically marketing fraud. https://www.heapooh.com/apple-iphones-5ge-att-network/

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#264

Post by asdff »

MrVitaliy wrote: post #74

This feels a lot like the battle of Blue-ray vs HD-dvd back in the early 2000s. While Blue-ray did win, it was less relevant to the industry than the original CD format. Things just moved online, flash storage and everyone got high-speed internet. If public WiFi becomes more ubiquitous, especially in densely populated areas, 4G vs 5G will be just as irrelevant as the battles for next CD format.

Every disc video game is a blu ray, I'd chalk that up to a win.

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#265

Post by PGenes »

amluto wrote: post #7

I find the argument that 5G is at all unsafe on a pole to be a bit silly. I think there are a couple of much more serious issues: 1. Is a millimeter-wave transmitter in a phone safe? The power output is moderately high, and these wavelengths are absorbed near the surface of your skin or your cornea . Cellphones are held near faces all the time. So I’d be much more concerned about using a 5G phone than about living ne…

I find your argument a bit silly. Are you suggesting that if A is less safe than B we should not worry about B? Seems we should worry about both!

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#266

Post by zb »

toxik wrote: post #25
zw123456 wrote: post #5

One thing that a lot of people do not understand is that 5G can operate in any frequency band. In fact, for many 4G radios it is nothing more than a software upgrade, no change to the physical device or power levels, just faster and lower throughput.

_Lower_ throughput? Care to elaborate?

I expect it was meant to say "lower-latency throughput".

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#267

Post by liability »

rorykoehler wrote: post #156
inimino wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> drawing a wire to connect a button to a light How are you getting power to the light?

Wirelessly?

I hope you're aware that uBeam is a scam which cannot work.

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#268

Post by reaperducer »

paul7986 wrote: post #176
reaperducer wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faster, yes. But "cheaper" is just marketing hype. There's no way the telecom companies are going to pass any potential savings on to any end user. Shareholders will poop a brick if they adopt technology that reduces RPU.

But it will or should bring competition to Comcast and cable companies alike! Who doesn't want more options for home broadband?

But it will or should bring competition to Comcast and cable companies alike!

I'll believe it when it happens.

DSL was going to break the chains of the dialup overlords.

Cable was going to break the chains of the DSL overlords.

Fiber was going to break the chains of the cable overlords.

Fixed wireless was going to break the chains of the fiber overlords.

My prediction: 5G data providers will pull the same tricks as what we have now. Pricing will be about the same as it is for legacy methods/speeds. You can only get the highest speeds and pay the highest prices even if you don't need all that bandwidth, unless you're part of a government poverty program. In which case, you'll get DSL speeds for cable prices. Signing up will be easy. Getting out of the contract will be hard. There will be mandatory fees for things you don't need or want.

It's the same group of companies. Why would we expect any different just because the delivery method has changed?

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#269

Post by lern_too_spel »

liability wrote: post #175
deanCommie wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could, but...they don't want to. So they won't!

You don't know that. Currently consumers don't have the (legal) option, so extrapolating their current behavior to their potential desires is fallacious.

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video already offer the ability to download and play later, so there is no need to extrapolate, and we do know that.

Re: Cities Are Saying ‘No’ to 5G, Citing Health, Aesthetics, and FCC Bullying

#270

Post by Wowfunhappy »

wideasleep1 wrote: post #233
agumonkey wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saddened that streaming is seen as something important. 5G may add IoT which can have value for everybody if done well (or not if it ends up as a sensation of being monitored 24/7 even without privacy issue)

It isn't for static content (songs/movies), but for active content it is. 5G should effectively redefine what streaming really is.

What does this mean? Multiplayer video games? Video calls? Communal karaoke?

I can see how all of these things might benefit from 5G's higher bandwidth and lower latency, but they should also be more than possible right now. So if there's some untapped audience for a communal online karaoke app, I really don't think 4G networks are what's holding them back.

This type of thing is where I get pretty frustrated with 5G talk. It's a lot easier to come up with ideas than it is to build them, so if we can't even come up with concrete ideas, I don't think 5G networks are going to make the difference.

All of the proposals I see either don't make any sense under scrutiny (live streamed AR), or could easily be accomplished in another way (smart light bulbs).

Faster mobile data is great. I'm just not expecting it to transform society.

Post reply on HN