Talk:5G

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Proposed split[edit]

Hello everyone. I think this article should be split because there is a great deal of specific implementation, rollout, regulatory, etc information about the US. That's not bad it's just good enough for WP:SPLIT. Invasive Spices (talk) 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Invasive Spices, welp, you are right, although I am here about a different split: the 5G NR page is barren when almost everything is NR-specific. 4G / LTE (telecommunication) are better organized in this regard. --Artoria 2e5 🌉 05:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So 5G NR has extraneous text which should be moved to 4G & LTE? I think I understand what you mean. Invasive Spices (talk) 21:51, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed wireless[edit]

The section on "fixed wireless" is a bit oddball. One of the references talks about the use of 5G for last-mile coverage, but the range and reliability (absorption by atmospheric gas, obstructions, variance based on humidity, etc) of the higher speed bands of 5G is so short that this doesn't apply much outside of the short ranges VDSL functions at, and VDSL has kinda proven itself to be a bad stop-gap. That particular ref is UK-specific; I'm less familiar with the population density in the countryside in the UK and the right of way laws that might prevent installation of physical connections. I threw out the verizon ref entirely because it was just a link to an ad for their home 5G->wifi modem which doesn't prove that it's an alternative (unless the mere existence of something makes it a worthwhile alternative, in which case a 14.4 modem and an AOL account is an great broadband alternative too.)

The ZDNet page's table (found around 20 pages down after talking up the technology constantly) says it all, with the mentioned:

Speeds
	4G	5G
Peak data rate (downlink)	1Gb/s	20 Gb/s
User data rate	10Mb/s	100Mb/s

... except those numbers aren't quite right. I was getting roughly 100Mb on 4G (sporadically) already. 5G raised it a whopping 20Mb/s in the same city, provider, etc. It's just not that big an improvement.

The UK article doesn't seem to know what "last mile" means, because those areas that don't have wired internet run already in some form tend to have the worst possible wireless signals. If 5G was a last mile alternative then so was 4G, since in that sort of deployment they won't be very different in speed. 11:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC) A Shortfall Of Gravitas (talk) 11:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A Shortfall Of Gravitas: There's the ITU 5G Goal (IMT-2020) and the 5G NR implementation, plus whatever your carrier and your phone manufacturer happens to be doing. Hypes are built around goals and don't need to make sense. To be fair though, the "user data rate" is supposed to be 5th percentile, so ehhhh... Artoria 2e5 🌉 05:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"5G conspiracies" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect 5G conspiracies has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 September 3 § 5G conspiracies until a consensus is reached. –CopperyMarrow15 (talk | edits) Feel free to ping me! 22:27, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Revision to Health[edit]

Non neutral changes[edit]

The edit that was reverted was an effort to improve the citations for that section. Can you share more context on the revert? @McSly [1] Tonymetz 💬 01:46, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI. I restored it. I think it was an improvement over the things published by Joseph Mercola, who is not taken seriously on Wikipedia, so why is he even mentioned? --David Tornheim (talk) 01:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The previous content[2] was also internally inconsistent. The same paragraph was citing CDC health risks of non-ionizing radiation and also describing "fringe health". It didn't read like an encyclopedia BUILDWP Tonymetz 💬 02:00, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:01, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(EC):: Well, if you read the text carefully, Mercola was used as an example of a crank promoting fear mongering on 5G, not in any way as an actual expert in the field. Second, the first paragraph is being whitewashed (removing the claim that 5G dangers are a fringe theory) and lastly, the change includes the sentence "Studies have shown that RF emissions from cell phones cause cancer" which is 1) flat out false and 2) misrepresentation of the 2 sources cited that are specifically not making that claim. --McSly (talk) 02:02, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some supernatural 5g health concerns are fringe, but the IARC has classified cell phone RF as carcinogenic [3] . We should be able to distinguish the mature health concerns from the fringe ones Tonymetz 💬 02:07, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No it's not. It is classified as "Possibly carcinogenic to humans", Group 2B. I strongly suggest that you stop misrepresenting the sources. --McSly (talk) 02:14, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also ok with "possibly carcinogenic to humans". That would be much more faithful than the dismissive "fringe health" tone that's currently being used. Tonymetz 💬 05:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk." [4] Tonymetz 💬 05:22, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Possibly carcinogenic" means that there have been studies, and the studies found no correlation. There is no category "Not carcinogenic" (which would mean that the measurement of the effect was exactly zero) because there are always error bars. There always "could be some risk", it is a non-statement inserted at the end of studies by people who either want to cover their ass or wish that they had got a different result than "zero plus/minus epsilon". --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:54, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is “ Group 3: The agent is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans.” Which is “not carcinogenic”. So 2b / “possibly carcinogenic” is a higher risk level than that Tonymetz 💬 16:38, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Which is “not carcinogenic” Wrong. It is "we know nothing about whether it is carcinogenic or not." "Not carcinogenic" is logically impossible to prove, and there is no such substance. See IARC group 3. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:50, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

so where would you put the relative risk factor when comparing 2B to 3? Tonymetz 💬 17:25, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@McSly: I agree that the claim "Studies have shown that RF emissions from cell phones cause cancer" is an exaggeration of what is in the WP:RS. In 2012, The British Medical Journal published this, which said:

The association between microwave radiation exposure from mobile phone use and tumour development in the brain and central nervous system has been much investigated, yet remains controversial. Although many large and well conducted studies have found little evidence to support such a link,1 2 3 4 5 a few studies have observed modest to large increases in relative risk,6 7 8 9 10 11 generally of glioma but with some reports of acoustic neuroma.9 11 Results have been generally negative for an association between phone use and risk of meningioma.12 The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has recently re-evaluated the risk of tumour development in the brain and central nervous system from mobile phone use, and rated this type of exposure as a possible human carcinogen (grade 2B).12 This declaration was based mainly on the results of two epidemiological studies: the Interphone study4 and a recent Swedish study by Hardell and colleagues.10

The British Medical Journal is not WP:FRINGE, like Mercola. We should be writing what is in current reliable sources rather than what is in unreliable sources. There are quite a few article in Google scholar [5]. I have not looked in the Med Journals. What WP:RS are you relying on? --David Tornheim (talk) 02:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As long as people use statistical significance as a criterion, there will always be "a few studies", namely 5% of them, that find something. It's the definition of statistical significance. So, this is also a null statement that actually means "we found nothing". --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:58, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

. They center on fringe claims that non-ionizing radiation poses dangers to human health... "exposure to intense, direct amounts of non-ionizing radiation may result in damage to tissue due to heat.

How is this an encyclopedia? The sentence itself is a contradiction .

I say we separate the unconventional risks of "non-ionizing radiation" which are well documented (CDC, OSHA, ARRL, IARC) from ionizing radiation.

I still don't see how fringe applies. If cancer.org remains neutral but references IARC risk levels, and these other major health institutions say there is a possibility, we are out of fringe territory.

In short there are two issues. The major one is internal inconsistency, the moderate one is "fringe" status for a non-negligible cancer risk. Tonymetz 💬 22:32, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Weird Editorializing"[edit]

Bon courage How is my edit "weird editorializing"? You claimed this in your revert. I inserted the name of the source publication, which is indeed non-medical (i.e. non-WP:MEDRS), and summarized the key claim in the article that the misinformation was related primarily to COVID. The title is "COVID-19, 5G conspiracies and infrastructural futures" and the first line of the abstract is "This article examines the emergence of conspiracy theories linking COVID-19 with 5G, with a focus on Australia, the United States and United Kingdom." Aren't we supposed to summarize what is in the article rather than cherry-pick out pieces?

Since this section is titled "Health", shouldn't we be relying on WP:MEDRS rather than a publication from the field of media studies by writers who have not stated that they have a solid background in medicine, cancer research, or epidemiology? --David Tornheim (talk) 06:03, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:NOTBMI. People's (whacky) beliefs are not subject to MEDRS, and drawing attention to it in editorial is - yes - weird. Bon courage (talk) 06:16, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]