Some time ago I wrote a piece “Is 5G a CIA plot”, spoiler alert: No. It looked at an incredible leaflet which claimed all kinds of evil for radio masts in general and 5G in particular. At the time it wasn’t that important and no-one much read it, but two things have happened since then.
The piece has been noticed by the militant anti-mast brigade. Which was kind of the click bait intention, and I’ve started getting the kind of emails you might expect of bad science, claims of headaches when near a 5G cell and insisting that someone whose neighbour has changed their wifi SSID to “CIA_5G” really has the CIA monitoring them.
Normally this would be at worst pathetic and at best funny, but I’ve been on the road to many of the U.K. 5G test sites and talking to the U.K. networks about 5G and there is a problem. A problem the nutters can only make worse.
It’s coverage. There is an air of expectation when you talk to the people who are experimenting with 5G. There is the incredible AutoAir project at Millbrook, the use of network slicing for public safety in Bristol and the heart-warming healthcare project in Liverpool. They all see the important thing about 5G as being ubiquity. That it will work whenever and wherever they are. Liverpool doctors can’t send people home from hospital with monitoring apparatus if the coverage is suspect. They have to stay in hospital. Self-driving cars can’t drive if they can only see the road ahead some of the time and monitoring people falling into Bristol harbour at night can’t rely upon them falling into the right bit of the harbour. For 5G to deliver its promise it needs to be everywhere.
But I’ve also been talking to the mobile networks. They gave me lots of answers to technical questions but when I asked what coverage they were after the answers were deliberately vague to very precise questions. And one of the factors, perhaps the major factor, is planning permission. To deliver on the promise of 5G the networks are going to need the vast majority of planning permission requirements to be revoked. They are going to need to be able to build 50 metre masts – as much of the rest of the world does – and they are going to need the force of the law on their side when it comes to access to sites they have on rented properties.
It matters to the nation’s economy because research from the University of Surrey shows that there is a significant improvement in business efficiency with 5G, with consequential benefits to us all.
I can understand that some people don’t like radio masts as an eyesore, but the vitriol and bile comes from the people who don’t understand the radio science. People who don’t differentiate between radiation and radioactive. There is no arguing with these people. They give credence to "science" which is deeply flawed and dismiss any real investigation which supports the safety of wireless communication as being a conspiracy of some kind - in the pay of governments, big business or some such. But they need to be ignored. If they are given a voice, and planning permission is denied we all suffer.
