I have not read up on it - I am no expert. However, this is the second technology (first being weather radar) that 5G is reported to have significant, negative effects on.
As a layman, I do wish we banned 5G entirely, assuming these assertions are correct. There is a greater public interest than even faster cell connectivity.
The wiki on 5G isn't bad - I now get that it is a tri-band negotiation, and I assume it is the "high" band that causes the issues.[1]
How does Wifi 6 use the same spectrum as 5G mid, but get such higher throughput?
And if the point of 5G is also to give higher speeds and capacity in dense urban environments, with denser antenna coverage, why couldn't they adapt the existing 2-6 GHz range instead of going up toward millimeter?
meta-edit: So, I put forward assertions, admitted humility and lack of expert knowledge, asked questions and linked to a wiki that I found to talk about the subject. If the person/people who downvoted me for the original content sees this, please note that the downvote button is not a disagree button. If you have substantive issue with the post, rebut it.
The problem has nothing to do with 5G inherently, and the vast majority of the bands it is approved to operate on will have no interference issues. The problem is that the current FCC has been very bullish on opening up more bands for mobile use even if there are legitimate interference concerns.
> And if the point of 5G is also to give higher speeds and capacity in dense urban environments, with denser antenna coverage, why couldn't they adapt the existing 2-6 GHz range instead of going up toward millimeter?
They are. Eventually all the bands currently used for 4G will be migrated to 5G. If you see T-mobiles ads about the largest 5G network in the country, that is all deployed on existing bands that were also approved for 4G. On these bands 5G will be a minor upgrade.
The millimeter bands are intended to significantly increase the number of concurrent users, but the places where it can be effectively deployed are very limited. It won't pass through buildings, and has short range. As an example, Verizon couldn't even cover a full sports stadium with a single tower, and that's a prototypical case of where millimeter is supposed to be valuable.
This latest issue is completely separate. It is entirely about a single company, Ligado, that bought spectrum adjacent to GPS at a discount deal because it came with strict restrictions on how that spectrum could be used to avoid interference with GPS. For years they have been trying to get the FCC to relax those restrictions for various different purposes, and this FCC finally approved. For previous requests there was tons of hard data filed showing that the proposed use would absolutely cause interference, and the requests were rejected. The latest approval does stipulate much wider guard bands and other measures to decrease interference. I don't know whether these measures are sufficient. The FCC commissioners unanimously think they are, while the DoD brass is insistent that they aren't.
As a layman, I do wish we banned 5G entirely, assuming these assertions are correct. There is a greater public interest than even faster cell connectivity.
The wiki on 5G isn't bad - I now get that it is a tri-band negotiation, and I assume it is the "high" band that causes the issues.[1]
How does Wifi 6 use the same spectrum as 5G mid, but get such higher throughput?
And if the point of 5G is also to give higher speeds and capacity in dense urban environments, with denser antenna coverage, why couldn't they adapt the existing 2-6 GHz range instead of going up toward millimeter?
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
meta-edit: So, I put forward assertions, admitted humility and lack of expert knowledge, asked questions and linked to a wiki that I found to talk about the subject. If the person/people who downvoted me for the original content sees this, please note that the downvote button is not a disagree button. If you have substantive issue with the post, rebut it.