This might be a good place to raise the 5G controversy. I always think that tech people tend not to think about unintended consequences. Apart from the radiation aspect, which the medical scientists don’t seem able to agree on, the fact that life support systems are going to be totally handed over to the control of machines is kind of scary to me. Apparently this thing is unstoppable, although there is an international petition going around. Hard to know who to believe.
Is 5G scary or what?
I heard someone senior in the mobile industry say a couple of days ago that the radiation is no different to the existing levels. Presumably, eventually, there won’t be holes in coverage which may make a difference but yes, it’s not only unstoppable but it’s here now, albeit in a fledgeling form.
Nevertheless, brain cancer scares will increase.
Not scary at all. It’s non-ionising radiation, there is no plausible mechanism by which it might cause cancer. Likewise 1-4G phones, no evidence at all of causal relationship with cancer. I’ve just been at the biggest cancer conference in the world (ASCO, Chicago), 33,000 medical oncologists and none of them are losing any sleep about 5G. Is it that we are scientifically illiterate that we don’t see things in context of magnitude of risk? Nobody seems worried much about alcohol, which has a very clear and substantial causative association with cancer. Likewise obesity. There are no calls for carcinogenic warning labels to be out on wine or Hob Nobs. But we freak out about mobile phones. I’m genuinely baffled by how we have some much angst about things that pose little or no threat, and yet shrug our shoulders about stuff like global climate breakdown.
Yes I’m one of the scientifically illiterate, that’s why it bothers me that different portions of the scientifically literate community can’t agree on such important issues.
It’s worth remembering that the scientific community is a cross-section of society, and so includes a fair number of fruitloops.
See also climate change, safety of GM plants, humane use of animals in medical research etc. The question is, what is the consensus?
The (overwhelming) consensus is that climate change is a clear and present danger, there’s nothing intrinsically harmful about GM plants and animal research is essential for medical progress. From what mutikona writes above, sounds like the same is true of 5G safety.
You’re welcome.
Chinese Radiation anybody?
The much-unloved G’n’R comeback album.
No, that’s Chinese Democracy.
It’s a fine song on the first Pere Ubu album.
One thing I am sure of, involving Huawei in anything involving national security would be madness.
I’ll bite. You are joking here?
Nope
Care to suggest any similar corporation, anywhere in the world, who would be an acceptable choice for the sorts of niche where we might choose to deploy Huawei tech in our infrastructure?
Any evidence for the ‘madness’ of using Huawei rather than any other supplier (beyond the various bleatings of noisy politicians and orange Americans that is)?
I ask because I haven’t read of any. Maybe I’ve not paid sufficient attention. But I suspect this is just Trumpish crap, a.k.a. fake news.
Isn’t it a bit more than just a niche?
It’s not just the US, it was the Aussies who drove it having completed rigorous testing and the Kiwis are following the same line. I’m not an expert but I’m with the view of our intelligence partners rather than the Chinese government. See below, also the UK testing which struggled to test anything as the software patches and releases were so complicated and random. Having worked with Huawei as a supplier for a year I can echo this. Once the entire power, water and communications networks are fully integrated and interdependent – within a few years – the thought of a cyber attack scares me shitless.
Read this. Do some followup and if be delighted to be reassured.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/how-australia-led-the-us-in-its-global-war-against-huawei-20190522-p51pv8.htm
How many people have you seen using Lenovo kit? Also owned by China. And what about CISCO kit? You know, the firm that rolled over for the NSA? Chinese? Nope. Guilty of political compromise under Govt. duress? Yep.
It’s a witch hunt old bean.
What next – ban the use of Huawei mobiles? They are already the second largest mobile phone provider across the globe, and now that Google have shat themselves pandering to the POTUS and his trade war posturing, they will start putting their own OS on the things instead of Android (an act one might well applaud)….
Sorry, but this all smacks of xenophobia and deliberately inflamed panic.
Comments here are interesting reading:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/17/18264283/huawei-security-threat-experts-china-spying-5g
Seems you are more annoyed with Trump than anything. Huaweil already have previous for sending data back to China without the client knowing in South America. But it almost doesn’t matter who is right – if the 5 Eyes say no and we say yes there’ll be 4 Eyes and we’ll be crossing our fingers. Let’s hope you’re right.
It just seems obvious to me that the orange fool is picking on an easy target, and all across the mid-west, thousands of baseball caps nod sagely along, believing there’s an evil plot behind it all, despite the lack of any evidence and in the presence of plenty of other things to be concerned about regarding our tech stack.
Huawei as a phone brand outside China is effectively dead now due to them being denied the Android updates.
Not for long. They already have their own mobile OS in dev.
Anyone who builds a large telecomms infrastructure without securing the content it carries and the pathways within it is sleepwalking. Whether some of the kit comes from any one supplier or not should not be an issue.
I expected that but globally, if they don’t have apps, then it won’t be popular. Apple and Android have a massive head start.
A I understand it, at least two of the mobile networks already use a lot of Huawei kit and have based their 5G infrastructure on installing more. Unpicking it from the system would be catastrophic, hence all the mobile operators are trying to get some sense out of the government.
I ran a programme installing 2500 Huawei edge routers across the UK for a major UK Telco! I don’t think they’re going to be removing them!
Exactly. Plus, IIRC, 5G will be largely piggy backed onto the 4G stuff rather than a new standalone install so none of the affected networks (all of them to different degrees) want to start from the ground up.
Yes it’s almost impossible to control as the 4G use the 3G resources to a degree and the same underlying transmission networks and the older ones have such chaotic architectures and crap documentation that they have no idea what’s really going on until something goes wrong. This multiplied by the fact that the UK/global telecoms sector has been through such a huge amount of merger, remerger, sell off etc it’s basically a great pile of spaghetti where the bit you can see is bad enough but there’s an incomprehensible mass underneath too.
This is the same for almost all UK infrastructures, not just the comms tech!
And it’s been APAC money that’s driven it all along – when I did some consultancy for Hutchison Microtel (who became Orange next) many years ago it was Hong Kong money that was paying for buying – or renting – all the BTS sites as the 3G network was being constructed back when GSM still stood for Groupe Spécial Mobile.
“sense out of the government”
*calls for an ambulance as sides split*
I’d be happy with 3G most of the time in the blackspot also known as my home.
5G is so much hoopla. Unless you live in a dense urban conurbation and want your fridge to be able to talk to your local Tesco while you’re out, it’s an irrelevance.
Yep, I live in the rural wilds of, um, Cambridge and only got 3G last year. I’ll be retired by the time the Chinese govt can spy on my fridge.
Same here. Well, not Cambridge, but the rural wilds anyway. Millimetre range radio connectivity with a propensity to be blocked by inconveniences like trees offers us the square root of FA out here. Unless we have repeaters on every tree from here to the horizon, it’s a non-starter as regards universal usefulness – just another money-spinner for the military industrial complex technocracy.
CISCO and RIPA. Just saying.
The CISCO Kid is a friend of mine.
In parts of Manchester city centre, you can’t get a phone signal at all.
Only cos some bugger keeps nicking your phone….
I’m not at all interested in 5G.
38G, yes.