Published in The Green Gazette
5G and Internet of Things: A Trojan horse
By Paul Héroux, Ph.D.,Professor of Electromagnetic Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University
March 27, 2018
Excerpt
The wireless industry dreams of deploying its new 5G (fifth generation) infrastructure in your neighbourhood soon, as it has begun doing in California. Boxes the size of a PC could be placed every 150 meters or so on utility poles, sometimes with small-refrigerator-sized boxes on the ground. 5G technology uses pulsed, millimeter-sized microwaves that are easily blocked by obstacles such as leaves, hence the need to install millions of cell signal boosters near homes.
The telecoms say this is the most efficient way to ease the digital congestion caused by audio-video streaming, whose global traffic, according to American giant Cisco, will be 11 times higher in 2018 than in 2014. Data would move through fibre optic cables, but rather than bringing these cables to your home, the last leg of the data’s journey would generally be wireless. As markets work, personal mobile phone subscriptions are more profitable than the higher speed fibre optic connections linked to desktops through your own router.
The 5G network would also support the huge increase in wireless communications created by the Internet of Things (IoT). Since most people already own a cellphone, industry wants to expand its market by embedding a cellular microchip into most manufactured goods. Therefore, items purchased in the future would generate data to be collected by companies and, ultimately, by governments. 5G-IoT is promoted by the promise of “smart” cities, leading to a more comfortable, convenient, and efficient life. But besides a relentless expansion of sales, 5G-IoT will strengthen mobile phones as a platform for publicity and population control. Further, 5G-IoT deployment carries significant health risks…SNIP
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