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Some Northern California Cities Are Blocking Deployment of 5G Towers (techcrunch.com)
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."
...wait until they learn about something called The Sun...
they will probably have a change of heart.
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.
inverse square law is your friend.
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.
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.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Locust voters - they destroy their own area, so flee to another region only to fuck it up all the same with their same ignorant socialist preferences.
Life is not for the lazy.
they dynamically use the minimum power, whether for transmitting or receiving that allows for low error communication.
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.
If you have cell service you have RF. If you have fewer cell towers, then to get the same minimal reception quality in the further areas, you need more radiation close to the towers. So it's exposing people to more RF.
Again, the problem is the phone on your ear, not the station.
Ask the idiots who wrote in and on Mill Valley city council what the difference is, and if they have scientific evidence corroborating health dangers.
This is the most aggravating thing about California...it's all about science until it isn't.
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 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.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
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.
Rick B.
Perhaps there's a reason why a cellphone tower can't be somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I don't know whether localities can impose such restrictions.
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.
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.
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.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Locust voters
Thank you for this new moniker - I think it is a brilliant metaphor!
Ah yes, the people fleeing California trope so ever so popular on the right and in the meme-hyping media.
It's not a 'trope'. I just checked uhaul. To rent a 26' truck for six days from Austin to San Francisco costs $1150. To go from San Francisco to Austin, the same truck costs $4380. The rates are similar for other states to/from San Fran. Why do you think that is, huh? The rich love CA because they can afford it, the poor are stuck there, but the middle class is renting uhaul trucks to escape.
I wish I had mod ooints to mod up the parent.
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 pole or roof of a building.
100 watt transmitter with 10 dB gain @ 10 ft distance = 0.856 mW/cm^2
Now lets compare with cell phone.
1 watt cell phone transmitter with 0 dB gain @ 1" distance = 12.340 mW/cm^2
1" distance does not actually occur in nature They are kept in pockets or pressed up to ears. The same setup at a half inch is 49.363 mW/cm^2
Obviously RL is much more complicated actual transmit power, duty cycles and exposure vary wildly. Thru it all distance is the dominating factor.
Someone did the math for us.
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...
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
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.
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".
Ken
You will all be poor when that happens
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?
Ken
CITATION. Show us where you can't bring an owned vehicle in CA that has been registered in some other state. Otherwise good day sir.
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?
Not the original anon, but here you go: how much to move outta san francisco
Obvs not the same as parent anon was hoping...its because there's a shortage of uhaul trucks in the bay area.
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.
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? It mentions RF burn, falling, beehives and bird nests, urination, and dropped tools.
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.
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.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
... you're twisting the most pointless data (uhaul, they can charge whatever they want wherever they want, has nothing to do with real statistics like the ones GP posted) to reach the most pointless conclusions.
Go bing keywords uhaul, prices, and population. You'll find dozens and dozens of news stories that use rental prices as a gauge to population migrations. Companies like uhaul charge market prices based primarily on supply and demand. Since there are fewer trucks to rent because more people use them to move away, prices go up. It's all very simple really.
And by the way, yes I do feel superior to idiots like you. I mean you don't have a clue how capitalism works and don't have the common sense to to see cause and effect when a large group of people are spending their own money in common ways.
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 Huston it's $1,101.
He's right; while the remoteness/isolation of the destination may play some small part in the calculation, this is primarily about supply and demand.
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.
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 produce 2–3W when talking to a distant tower). Heck, even a full tower (160W max, 40W typical) is less than two orders of magnitude more than your cell phone when it is shouting at maximum volume towards a distant tower.
In fact, in short-range radio system designs, the base station power output is almost always similar to the individual device's power output. These high-density 5G cells might have slightly higher output than your phone, but not by orders of magnitude, and probably not even by an order of magnitude.
Now as you (or some other AC) said, the exposure is potentially over a greater period of time, in that the cell tower transmits when any device in the area is active, but the tower covers a much smaller area, so the number of active devices is lower proportional to the area covered. The coverage area, in turn, is proportional to the square of the radius. Its worst-case power output also increases also proportional to the square of the radius (though each cell only covers a narrow vertical and horizontal angle, so this part isn't *equal* to the square of the radius). The total exposure is proportional to the product of those numbers. Thus, the total exposure is proportional to the tower's transmission radius to the fourth power even if you're look at current picocells (omnidirectional radiators). Smaller cells that are closer to you are always going to be much safer to be around.
When you add in beamforming (which allows the tower to transmit highly directionally, thus minimizing EM exposure except in a straight line from the tower to each active device), these 5G picocells should produce much lower average exposure than existing large towers.
If you want to argue about safety, the right argument is about whether the frequency of EM used is safe. That's a bigger question. That said even if it is dangerous, you will still, on average, get less exposure if the transmission range (and thus the transmit power) is kept to a minimum by using a larger number of stations that are closer together. So in the best case, these people are making their coverage worse, and in the worst case, they are increasing their cancer risk by causing their phones to use more power. There is no form of mathematics under the sun in which using distant towers instead of MIMO picocells reduces your EM exposure, period.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.