Some Northern California Cities Are Blocking Deployment of 5G Towers (techcrunch.com) 187
Hkibtimes tipped us off to some interesting news from TechCrunch:
The Bay Area may be the center of the global technology industry, but that hasn't stopped one wealthy enclave from protecting itself from the future. The city council of Mill Valley, a small town located just a few miles north of San Francisco, voted unanimously late last week to effectively block deployments of small-cell 5G wireless towers in the city's residential areas. Through an urgency ordinance, which allows the city council to immediately enact regulations that affect the health and safety of the community, the restrictions and prohibitions will be put into force immediately for all future applications to site 5G telecommunications equipment in the city. Applications for commercial districts are permitted under the passed ordinance....
According to the city, it received 145 pieces of correspondence from citizens voicing opposition to the technology, compared to just five letters in support of it -- a ratio of 29 to 1. While that may not sound like much, the city's population is roughly 14,000, indicating that about 1% of the population had voiced an opinion on the matter. Blocks on 5G deployments are nothing new for Marin County, where other cities including San Anselmo and Ross have passed similar ordinances designed to thwart 5G expansion efforts over health concerns... The telecom industry has long vociferously denied a link between antennas and health outcomes, although California's Department of Public Health has issued warnings about potential health effects of personal cell phone antennas. Reduced radiation emissions from 5G antennas compared to 4G antennas would presumably further reduce any health effects of this technology.
The article concludes that restrictions like Mill Valley's "will make it nearly impossible to deploy 5G in a timely manner."
According to the city, it received 145 pieces of correspondence from citizens voicing opposition to the technology, compared to just five letters in support of it -- a ratio of 29 to 1. While that may not sound like much, the city's population is roughly 14,000, indicating that about 1% of the population had voiced an opinion on the matter. Blocks on 5G deployments are nothing new for Marin County, where other cities including San Anselmo and Ross have passed similar ordinances designed to thwart 5G expansion efforts over health concerns... The telecom industry has long vociferously denied a link between antennas and health outcomes, although California's Department of Public Health has issued warnings about potential health effects of personal cell phone antennas. Reduced radiation emissions from 5G antennas compared to 4G antennas would presumably further reduce any health effects of this technology.
The article concludes that restrictions like Mill Valley's "will make it nearly impossible to deploy 5G in a timely manner."
If they are worried about radiation... (Score:2, Insightful)
...wait until they learn about something called The Sun...
Summary is wrong, they didn't ban 5g entirely (Score:2, Informative)
Look up the Inverse square law, Einstein-san. Also - They didn't "ban" 5g, they said they don't want it on light poles in dense residential areas. They still allow it downtown on office buildings. TFS is wrong.
Re:Summary is wrong, they didn't ban 5g entirely (Score:5, Insightful)
These liberal run towns don't care about science.
Liberals are not all alike. Some are very pro-science, while others are anti-vaxx, anti-GMO, anti-cellphone-brain-cancer, anti-scientific-evidence hippies. Marin County is badly infested with the latter.
Disclaimer: I am not a liberal.
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As for:
....where the entirety of all life on the planet is fueled directly or indirectly by the suns output
No, it's not.
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Re:Summary is wrong, they didn't ban 5g entirely (Score:5, Informative)
So you are unfamiliar with photosynthesis?
So you are unfamiliar with chemosynthesis? There are biomes on this planet that are not beholding to the sun's energy.
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Re:Summary is wrong, they didn't ban 5g entirely (Score:4, Informative)
....where the entirety of all life on the planet is fueled directly or indirectly by the suns output
This is not true.
There are biomes on this planet that are not beholding to the sun's energy.
This is true.
Regardless of which is more or less common (photosynthesis, or chemosynthesis biomes not supported by solar energy), the first statement is still not true; because photosynthesis is far more readily seen and available to us does not make it absolute....which is what the initial comment i was responding to stated.
Re: Summary is wrong, they didn't ban 5g entirely (Score:1)
Look up the Inverse square law
Yep, that's a great start. After you're done looking that up, go ahead and look up the power output of the sun vs a radio antenna.
Re:Summary is wrong, they didn't ban 5g entirely (Score:5, Informative)
Look up the Inverse square law,
The problem, if you are concerned with radiation, is moving the towers further away will cause the cell phones in peoples homes that are much much closer to crank up their transmit power.
Yes this is worse because your phone will be blasting out at max, about 2 watts, potentially right near you in the same room. Being much closer, a much larger amount of radiation intensity remains when it gets to your body.
The towers are normally pretty far away anyway, and due to the inverse square law the intensity remaining once it has traveled to your body is embarrassingly tiny in comparison.
Let's actually USE the inverse square law.
There are four values in the formula, the starting distance and intensity, and the ending distance and intensity. You need three of those values to find the forth as an unknown.
We know the transmit powers of cell phones and towers at their source, and we can estimate the distance you'd be to both, letting us solve for the intensity at the distance to you.
Cell phones, at max can transmit about 2 watts of power. If it is in the same room with you, say on your night stand charging, let's go with 20 feet away to be generous.
2 watt / 20 feet squared = 0.005 watts of power when it reaches you. Ok.
Towers, typically transmit at 10 watt with 4 and 5G.
Let's go with one mile away as the distance, at least that's typical around where I am.
1 mile is 5280 feet, to keep like-units.
10 watt / 5280 feet squared is 0.0000003587 watts by the time it reaches you.
That's 5 thousands of a watt your cell phone will be radiating you with at max power, which without a tower near by it will be doing.
Compared to zero thousands of a watt for the tower placed close by at a mile away.
You need to go down three whole decimal places to get the first non-zero number.
Three one-millionths of a watt, or four one-millions of a watt if you wish to round up (rule of 5s)
That's over a thousand times the radiation exposure now coming from your own cell phone next to you.
*golfclap* good job on reducing our radiation exposure california!
That's informative. Thanks. No mod points today (Score:2)
I wish I had mod ooints to mod up the parent.
Re: Summary is wrong, they didn't ban 5g entirely (Score:2)
the article is about towers in utility poles rigth out of your home. if you are 1mile from it I assume you live in a rural setting. for me it is about 50ft.
also, you forgot about time and radiation accumulation. A cellphone is only used a few times a day, while a tower put in front of your house will be dousing you 24/7.
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the article is about towers in utility poles rigth out of your home. if you are 1mile from it I assume you live in a rural setting. for me it is about 50ft.
Actually I live in a city of about a million people, but I am on the east coast not the west.
We generally have 1-2 large towers in a given mile radius here.
I have no doubt major California cities are far more densely populated.
But if you do the math even 40 feet away will be one one-hundredth of the exposure you would get compared to your cell phone itself.
also, you forgot about time and radiation accumulation. A cellphone is only used a few times a day, while a tower put in front of your house will be dousing you 24/7.
I did not forget it, I explained fairly clearly why that isn't actually true.
You personally may only use your cell phone a few times a day, but that has
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If these towers are only using 2 watts then how come they have these big frickin' cables going up? A CB radio from the 1970s used to max out at 5 watts. Some people would hook up a linear and amp it up to hundreds. Seems like the cables going up are awfully big for just 2 watts. The emergency generators at these stations that I see around where I am are enough to run the neighborhood.
Yet we're near them and we're not fried in the brain. Well some may think this is why we're going crazy recently.
Once their 4G is unsupported (Score:2)
they will probably have a change of heart.
I'd push for towers (Score:5, Informative)
except that mobile systems self-regulate power (Score:4)
The biggest radiation threat is with the transmitter on your phone next to your head. Therefore you want your phone to be as close as possible to the cell tower so that it emits the least radiation.
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The closer the devices are to the tower, the less power the tower uses, too. The close spacing of 5G towers means that everybody's exposure is fairly consistent, rather than having hotspots near towers where people get more exposure. The range of a 5G tower is measured in tens to
Re: Except cell towers put out massive power ANYWA (Score:3)
None of that changes the fact that cellphones and cellphone towers put out low level non ionizing radiation which does not cause any negative health effects.
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Actually, it does change that "fact". These are the 5G equivalent of microcells or even picocells, which put out much less power than primary cell phone towers (2–20W for a microcell or 250mW–2W for a picocell). In fact, picocell output is comparable to the output of a cell phone (which can produ
Re: except that mobile systems self-regulate power (Score:2)
Also because there is no proven danger of exceeding the official limits
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The biggest radiation threat is with the transmitter on your phone next to your head
Except when you're not using a phone, then it's the tower.
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Except when you're not using a phone, then it's the tower.
Nope. For ionizing radiation able to cause cancer, bananas are a bigger threat [wikipedia.org].
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Banana equivalent dose has been debunked many times here. The body is designed to handle eating potassium and passes any excess out. It isn't so good with ionising radiation.
Not that this type of radiation is a huge deal either, just that using banana as a comparison is flawed.
Re: except that mobile systems self-regulate power (Score:2)
Banana equivalent dose has been debunked many times here. The body is designed to handle eating potassium and passes any excess out. It isn't so good with ionising radiation.
You're horribly confused. Potassium emits ionizing radiation. Cellphones emit non-ionizing radiation. Ergo far from "debunking" the argument, you've just reinforced it.
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they dynamically use the minimum power, whether for transmitting or receiving that allows for low error communication.
(someone else)
The closer the devices are to the tower, the less power the tower uses, too.
This post only applies to CDMA, I have no experience with TDM or GSM systems.
Handsets use minimum power not to save the battery, but to avoid drowning out other nearby handsets. Think of a party. If you and your friends are talking you can hear each other over the background noise. Soon as some bozo in the room starts yelling nobody can hear anything but the bozo.
All packets from the base station to the handset have a power control bit. If the bit is set the handset will up the transmit power, oth
Here's the math (Score:2)
Someone did the math for us.
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
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Again, the problem is the phone on your ear, not the station.
Re: ugly crap (Score:2)
No. The communication needs go both ways, this is not TV we are talking about. There is an antenna in each phone that can send just as strong signals as a cell tower but only one at a time
Hmm. (Score:1)
I had a customer spouting this stuff to me the other day. Super nice person, but "it changes your blood" and "It damages your mitochondrial dna" was among the stuff I heard. I wonder what the cancer incidence is among cell tower workers is though. All I can google is "They often die by falling." Gee, thanks, Cracked.
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Heh, the link above, by AC, shows photos of birds even nesting on cell towers, so what does that tell you? For me it tells absolutely nothing that I didn't yet know.
Don't believe just anything that people tell you.
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"They often die by falling."
I'm SHOCKED! SHOCKED to hear that.
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I am not supporting any position other than your google skills seem to be lacking. I just got back from MWC.
Posted without further comment:
Effects of microwave radiation on brain energy metabolism and related mechanisms [nih.gov]
Exposure to 1800 MHz radiofrequency radiation induces oxidative damage to mitochondrial DNA in primary cultured neurons. [nih.gov]
Relationship between cognition function and hippocampus structure after long-term microwave exposure. [nih.gov]
Neural Cell Apoptosis Induced by Microwave Exposure Through [nih.gov]
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I was googling cell tower workers dude. The people who get physically burned by those signals. They're the ones I was googling.
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I was googling cell tower workers dude.
So why were you doing that? I am left to guess that your idea was that cell tower workers get more exposure than regular consumers so therefore if they don't get sick from it nobody else should be either.
If that is the case I see lots of problems with your assumptions. For one thing I would expect a cell tower linesman to be safety trained with regard to not being in front of a powered-up directional signal source. Are the antennas even powered up when they are up there? Once the are done with the i
Re: Hmm. (Score:1)
It was based on a tower workers saying they needed to power things up to test them, and photos of RF burn. Also, the premise of the fear is that proximity increases risk. It's a more logical course of investigation than rat cells in whatever petri dish analogue they're grown in, especially given how such studies are notorious for being hard to get good actionable data from. Or are you not aware of how many methods that have been successfully used to eridacate nearly every horrible disease in rats? If rats w
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So you linked to a bunch of articles from purely China authors in Beijing. While I see a lot of quotes about dangers, I guess if I stick my head in a microwave for 20 or 30 minutes at a time I can understand having some DNA damage. What I don't see is is any explanation of why a microwave sitting my kitchen is danger.
Might as well be links to the dangers of Di-hydrogen Oxide and all the nasty effects it has.
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So you linked to a bunch of articles from purely China authors in Beijing.
nih.gov is "purely China?" Good to know. The fact that you apparently think that the authors are Chinese based in Beijing (writing in perfect English) means that their research is disregard-able suggests to me that you are just so conditioned to take a side that it is your opinion is more questionable.
What I was hoping for is someone to check what part of the spectrum 5G uses, or maybe the use case and deployment practice, or something else not considered and provide insight as to the safety of the t
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You listed studies about these dangers, but somehow they are all from China, with only Chinese contributors with no details on their results. Combine that with China have a serious problems with a lack of peer review I am saying that I have some bias on the source of the information. Whether it is listed by the NIH or not is irrelevant.
If the information is not that common and your struggling to find something on the dangers of 5G usage, I find it unlikely that Mills Valley has some secret knowledge that t
5 Terrifying Realities of Cell Tower Climber (Score:2)
Where is Cracked spouting RF alarmism? I thought that even for an infotainment site, Cracked was better than that. So let's first get on the same page as to which article we're looking at.
(searches the web for site:cracked.com cell phone radiation)
Are you referring to "5 Terrifying Realities Of My Job As A Cell Tower Climber" by Ryan Menezes [cracked.com]? It mentions RF burn, falling, beehives and bird nests, urination, and dropped tools.
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If there are
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Ok.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Re: DENIALIST FAGGOT GETS ASS SCIENCE-KICKED AGAIN (Score:2)
Your quoted study found that it affects male rats but not female rats. Even without looking at their methodology, that tells me one of two things is going on. Either:
1. Their study is crap, and there's no actual effect, or
2. Miniscule changes in brain chemistry can have a significant impact on this effect, which means the results are useless when it comes to figuring out effects on humans.
Either way it doesn't tell us anything useful. Unless you're really really worried about the health of male rats.
Re: Learn to read c6gunner - (Score:2)
That's some wonderful quote mining there. The majority of the page says "no", but you dig for the couple parts which say "well, there's this weird result in this one study". I'm always amazed how professionals like yourself manage to find the one nugget of shit in a pile of gold.
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Re: Hmm. (Score:1)
I've read enough marginally relavent links about rat brain cells for one day. Come back with a link showing that cell tower workers, exposed to many orders of magnitude of the radiation, are suffering massive cellular damage and neural problems and I'll read it.
Re: Hmm. (Score:2)
Heh, cellular damage.
Re: Hmm. (Score:2)
No, your "mainstream science" are preliminary studies without any evidence of real-world effects. It's a decent starting point if you're looking to justify further research on human beings, but other than that it's meaningless.
Some Rich People In Marin County Don't Want 5G (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm perfectly okay with that. They can change their mind any time they want 5G. I'm sure Verizon will be happy to oblige. A wealthy enclave of 14,000 people is not going to hold up the deployment of 5G anywhere, but their own little community.
Define ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation (Score:2, Redundant)
This is the most aggravating thing about California...it's all about science until it isn't.
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But the fact is, there still isn't conclusive evidence that the G4/G5 cellphone towers AREN'T a health problem. Provider payed research claims it's not, independant research claims it might... Problem is, we still don't know the longterm effects of extra radiation like Wifi/mobile etc.. It's the same a bit with powerlines, it used to be said that it wasn't a problem, but now we know powerlines do create a health problem.
And looking at some studies in regard to cellphone towers, it seems there is an increase
Re: First Prop 65, now this (Score:2)
Would you stand in a millimeter wave scanner all day
I do; it's called sunlight. My clothes do a pretty good job of blocking the harmful bits, but when it gets really strong I throw on some sunblock. If the 5G towers ever get that strong we might have a bit of a problem; until then I'm not much interested in your FUD.
This is BS (Score:3)
Towers will not be allowed in residential areas but will be allowed in commercial areas.
So if there were actual health concerns I will be exposed at work and what about the folks with property adjacent to commercial locations where towers are allowed? How do you keep the RF from crossing zoning boundaries?
I think this is about money,
This effectively diverts the income stream from site leases to only those with commercial property.
Too bad for the people who want bitchen 5G coverage.
And it sucks for the residential property owners loss of possible income.
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So if there were actual health concerns I will be exposed at work and what about the folks with property adjacent to commercial locations where towers are allowed? How do you keep the RF from crossing zoning boundaries?
The kind of people who will seek to ban something for the reasons that they've expressed probably lack the understanding of the technology or the reasoning ability to consider that.
As someone else pointed out, if there is a link between cellular radio waves and negative health effects, the biggest cause is going to be the radio in your phone that's right next to your head when you're talking on it. You know, the one that has to increase the power when the cell tower it's trying to connect to is farther a
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Sorry, that doesn't change the fact that being near the tower you get a much larger dose than you do from being near even a cluster of phones, so you're just wrong about that. There are zones where either is true, but being near to a tower = a larger dose than being near to a phone, period, and I don't expect you to understand basic shit or research the issue but I install RF equipment for a living and you don't know what you're talking about.
Every doubling of distance results in 4x reduction of energy density. Distance matters more than people tend to intuitively understand.
Assume a cell tower is 100ft AGL and you happen to be standing right under it.
100 watt transmitter with 10 dB gain @ 100 ft distance = 0.008 mW/cm^2
1000 watt transmitter with 10 dB gain @ 100 ft distance = 0.085 mW/cm^2
10000 watt transmitter with 10 dB gain @ 100 ft distance = 0.856 mW/cm^2
Assume you are 10 ft from a small cell tower /w 100 watt transmitter attached to a
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How do you keep the RF from crossing zoning boundaries?
The exact SAME way you solve the "only good people can use crypto-backdoors" problem: LEGISLATION! It's glorious, wonderful, and more is better.
As a matter of fact, let's pass a law requiring more legislation. After all, we have to do something to prove our worth. You wouldn't want us to actually work or understand things for a living, would you? That'd be cruel and inhumane -- and bothersome.
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Chainlink fence.
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> faggot
well, clearly you are a voice of scientific intelligence and wisdom.
Not In My Living Room! (Score:2)
The FCC may have something to say about this.. (Score:2)
I don't know whether localities can impose such restrictions.
California BANANAs! (Score:1)
Can California just have it's huge earthquake and slide off under the Pacific NOW?
Nothing of any real importance will be lost.
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FCC overrules them (Score:2)
The statute also preempts local decisions premised directly or indirectly on the environmental effects of radio frequency (RF) emissions, assuming that the provider is in compliance with the Commission's RF rules.
In other words, ban what you want - but the FCC will ignore your ban and you have no legal standing as a city/town/State to say "we're worried about RF emissions" and use that as any part of the justification in banning new cell towers/sites.
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That sounds familiar. The communities may have some latitude with regards to aesthetics (disguised as a tree, or a certain color). They might be able to keep them out of certain areas as long as there is another nearby place that is also suitable.
But they can't just outright ban them.
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In other words, ban what you want - but the FCC will ignore your ban and you have no legal standing as a city/town/State to say "we're worried about RF emissions" and use that as any part of the justification in banning new cell towers/sites.
When someone says they want to ban cell towers "for the children" ask them if their children have cell phones, and ask them why they think the cell tower on the other side of town is a greater threat to their children's health than the transmitter in their kid's pocket?
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Nonsense (Score:2)
The telecom industry has long vociferously denied a link between antennas and health outcomes, although California's Department of Public Health has issued warnings about potential health effects of personal cell phone antennas.
Cell tower antennas are much different from personal cell phone antennas - one is on top of a tower and pointed towards the horizon, the other is typically between 1" to 6" away from your body/head.
Obviously, the antenna within a few inches of your body is the greater threat, but they want to eliminate the comparatively safe cell towers because it makes them "feel" like they've done something "for the children".
Ironic (Score:3)
The irony is these fuckers will be the loudest ones bitching when their phones dont work for shit at home. I have already had to explain this to a lot of work collegues that live in large developments with HOAs. No antennas = no service. How much more fucking obvious can you get?
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They're not towers. You won't have 5G towers every 500 feet. You have short poles. Like you already have to carry power and cable, and that one old lady down the block who still has a land line.
Wonderful! (Score:1)
You can instead roll out 5G in my neighborhood. You can put a tower in my back yard. Literally, I have half an acre just growing weeds. Of course I will charge you rent for it, but hey.
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Locust voters
Thank you for this new moniker - I think it is a brilliant metaphor!
Re:Can you idiots in CA quit leaving? (Score:5, Informative)
Ah yes, the people fleeing California trope so ever so popular on the right and in the meme-hyping media. In the reality-based world however amazingly few Californians [ocregister.com] leave the state (the OC Register is a famously right-wing newspaper BTW). In the 2010-2015 period studied no state had a lower per-capita movement rate than California, with an out-migration rate of 1.55%. Since that time the rate has increased, and is currently slightly above the national average (which is 2.3%).
Of course with the largest population of any state (one in 8 Americans) even a low, or average, rate is a relatively large number of people, due to simple arithmetic. But California is a high-income state (8th, 5th if you take out low population resource extraction economy states) with a diverse high-tech economy, and even with the current out-migration its population is still growing (despite the fact that the undocumented population isn't - so that's not why), and the real dynamic is that young(ish) people are coming into California for the jobs and salaries, and retired people are leaving.
This is a very healthy dynamic for California. Let Florida be the place where people go to die, and vote against education and the environment since they don't care about the future. Enjoy that red tide Floridians.
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Citation please. Who says rental vehicles have to be registered in Texas? I picked one up that was registered in CA. In any event, lets pick a different destination. Peoples Republic of San Fran to Boise ID is $3375. Boise to San Fran utopia is $646.
You want to take their truck from civilization to the middle of nowhere? Of course that is going to cost you.
The people bringing it back get a break, cause that is what they would have to do anyway.
Re: Can you idiots in CA quit leaving? (Score:2)
You want to take their truck from civilization to the middle of nowhere? Of course that is going to cost you.
The people bringing it back get a break, cause that is what they would have to do anyway.
That's not really how that works. Anyway you can run similar comparisons to other large cities and see what you get. For instance, I just checked Atlanta to Boise and vice versa. It's about the same in each direction; $1,483 to leave Atlanta, and $1,421 to come back. Atlanta isnt "in the middle of nowhere", but you might complain that it has a relatively small population. Fine. At over 2 million people, Huston is one of the largest cities in the USA. From Huston to Boise it's $1,854; from Boise to Hu
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Not the original anon, but here you go: how much to move outta san francisco [sandiegouniontribune.com]
Obvs not the same as parent anon was hoping...its because there's a shortage of uhaul trucks in the bay area.
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The rats were exposed to nine hours of radiation daily, in 10-minutes-on, 10-minutes-off intervals, over their whole bodies for two years. The researchers found increased incidences of rare brain and heart tumors starting at about the federally allowable level of cellphone radiation for brain exposure, with greater incidences at about two and four times those levels.
WTF does that study have to do with cell phone towers? Seriously, they put rats in a cage on top of a cell phone transmitter for two years with a "ten minute on/ten minute off"... How does that relate to living in a town with a cell tower?