Column: 5G technology promises faster tech, provokes fear

In the midst of a pandemic and days away from the arrival of a hurricane, the Hawaii County Council decided last week to address the future of technological innovation on Hawaii island. The Council voted 8-1 to pass a resolution calling for a halt in the deployment of 5G cellular technology until it is proved safe.

The one “no” vote was because the resolution didn’t go far enough, the Council member saying that the Council should have banned all cellular infrastructure entirely.

Opposition to 5G over health concerns is not limited to Hawaii. It’s fair to say there’s a global movement against 5G technology, complete with petitions, protests, celebrities and conspiracy theories.

And while there is significant overlap between 5G opponents and those opposed to vaccines, or GMOs, or to mandatory face mask policies, to dismiss them all as being anti-technology Luddites is unproductive.

5G is the telecommunications industry term for “fifth generation,” the next generation of cellular technology after the ubiquitous deployment of 4G, the current set of protocols and standards that support high-speed data on mobile devices.

Technically, a 4G system can support 1 gigabit-per- second data speeds, which are still not common in real-world use. Mobile phone companies market near-4G service as “LTE,” or “Long-Term Evolution,” delivering around 100 megabit-per-second speeds.

If you can comfortably stream music or video on your smartphone, you’re enjoying the benefits of 4G standards.

How much better will 5G be? The 5G standard spans speeds up to 20 gigabits per second, or 20,000 megabits. And the 5G standard advances two other important factors in connectivity: bandwidth and latency.

5G supports 10 times the maximum bandwidth of 4G, meaning more simultaneous connections and more potential parallel networks. And 5G has one-tenth the latency, or response time, of 4G, which is critical to performance in tasks ranging from medicine to gaming.

Some critics of 5G say that 4G is good enough. But the exponential growth we’ve seen in the number and volume of data connections is only just the beginning. With smart homes and appliances, self-driving cars and telemedicine all becoming mainstream, a given household could need several times its current data capacity in just a few years.

This need for universal connectivity has been made starkly clear in the time of COVID-19, with demand peaking for Netflix, Zoom and remote schooling.

All of these benefits, critics say, cannot be at the expense of our health. And they will cite dangers ranging from brain cancer to electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

Do these risks exist? Unfortunately, the furthest most science and health agencies will go is saying that there are no clear links between 5G or related microwave technologies and adverse health effects. But they’re also not saying there is zero risk.

It’s important to note, however, that the advance of technology always has sparked similar fears: radio in the 1920s, televisions in the 1940s (black and white) and 1960s (color), power lines in the 1970s, electric blankets in the 1990s and, of course, the first cellphones. It is reasonable to be afraid that things are changing faster than we can adapt or before we know the long-term impacts.

And the fact that 5G has less range than 4G, requiring “micro tower” deployments every few blocks instead of every few miles, makes their presence even more menacing.

But radios, TVs and cellphones have been around long enough to satisfy most scientists that any link between nonionizing radiation (very different from X-rays) and disease are rare. In fact, in the U.S., brain cancer rates were lower in 2017 than in 1992.

The case for 5G technology is clear, but the case against it is not as simple. But if opponents won’t rest until there is 100% agreement among all scientists in the world, the conflict isn’t going to end anytime soon.

Ryan Ozawa is communications director for local tech company Hawaii Information Service, and hosts an open discussion forum at Hawaii­Slack.com. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter at @hawaii.