Quick disclaimer before you continue reading my submission on the aforementioned subject.
- I am not God and therefore extremely limited in all aspect. The God I strongly believe in is the only one who knows everything.
- I am not in any way representing here the organization/company I work for.
- I am part of an IT/Engineering global community, a trained software engineer, an experienced product reliability and safety leader/consultant, who have been following the 5G technology for almost 2 (two) years. You will therefore agree with me that I am reasonably informed on this subject.
- Every opinion shared here is based on independent research and entirely personal.
What is 5G Technology?
5G is the next generation of mobile internet connectivity. It has a reasonable increase in bandwidth and reliable connectivity with many devices at a single time and, these includes smart phones and many other electronic devices. 5G is essentially the scaling up of 4G technology so the growing number of billions of devices relying on a constant and an uninterrupted internet connection can be accommodated for.
Some Benefits of 5G Technology:
5G technology has been described by the European Commission as “One of the most critical building blocks of our digital economy and society in the next decade”. With this technology, devices will have capabilities to process high volumes of data messages with less delay time. Some more focused benefits of 5G technology in the healthcare/medical device space are discussed below:
- Transmitting large image files at a fair amount of speed and reliable connectivity. Computed Tomography (CT) scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and other imaging devices usually produce very large files, which needs to be sent to specialist for review. Some of these imaging machines generates up to 1gigabyte of information per patient per study. With a low bandwidth network, transmissions take much longer time or even sometimes aborted and therefore not successfully sent. Patients are therefore subjected to longer waited times before treatments can be administered and, healthcare providers are only able to see fewer patients at a time. Scaling up high-speed 5G network to existing design architectures can help eradicate problems with image data processing turn around times. This will thereby improve both access and quality of patient care.
- 5G Technology helps boost Artificial Intelligence (AI). In diagnostic Imaging for example, many design functions are now adding AI features to help determine potential diagnosis for unique patients and hence provide best treatment outcomes. Furthermore, AI is being used in predictive engineering. We need to know which patients are more susceptible to post surgery complications, this will help healthcare workers to provide early interventions. All these large amounts of data needed for real time education requires high speed and network connections.
- Remote healthcare monitoring also heavily depends on lower latency and high capacity network communications. Slow and unreliable networks mean physicians/clinicians and other healthcare providers are unable to make quick value-added healthcare decisions.
- Telemedicine has become important and useful more than ever before. This can only be enabled by a network that can support real time quality video, which means very fast and reliable network connections. Patients are therefore able to get treatment Sonner and quick access to doctors and other specialists are made possible.
Antennas and Frequencies used in 5G deployment and Healthcare Concerns:
Mounted antennas used by 5G requires shorter frequency ranges. This means that they should not be too far off the ground. Due to the close proximity of these frequencies, “some 5G conspiracy theorists contend that the new network generates radio-frequency radiation that can damage DNA and cause premature aging; disrupt cell metabolism; and potentially lead to other diseases through the generation of stress proteins”.
Cell phone network is an example of radio-frequency radiation (RFR). Emissions in general emitted from electromagnetic spectrums are RFR’s. These includes light from the sun, X-rays, radio waves, light from monitors, etc.…. Scientist have claimed that in order to determine whether any particular RFR is dangerous, they should be first placed into one of two categories of buckets; Ionizing or non-ionizing radiation. The technologies we use everyday like WI-FI, FM radio and power lines falls under the non-ionizing category which means they are not strong enough to break chemical bonds. Hence one of the main reasons why I keep questioning the many submissions out there around the dangers of 5G technology. No one out there is still yet to convince me in clear terms, backed by evidence testing; what has triggered WI-FI RFR to now fit into the ionizing bucket?
It is also important for readers to know that health concerns around radiation is not anything new. Health concerns about electromagnetic radiation has stolen headlines for a very long time. 5G technology is just adding another face to it.
In my experience with reliability and safety work on medical products, I have always raised eyebrows, questioned and challenged many designs that had to do with not only radiation potential hazards, but also any other related hazards. This is the right thing to do. We do bunch of Design for Reliability (DFR) and testing on every design, find potential failure modes, understand root causes and mitigate those with zero compromise especially if they are safety critical and hazard related, before releasing or deploying to customers. My assumption is that, thorough reliability work and testing would have happened on the 5G technology and appropriate required mitigations put in place before rolling out. Those at the forefront of the 5G technology I believe are very smart and responsible people. I see no reason why they would want to deploy a technology that has the potential of wiping out the entire human race. Besides, aren’t telecommunications regulatory bodies out there responsible for ensuring checks and balances on these technologies? Remember, the 5G technology has now been deployed in 40 countries. As of today, I am not aware of illnesses or deaths that can be directly linked to 5G.
As for the claims of an ID implantation making some rounds which is said to come with a vaccine, this is completely false and lacks scientific evidence. I’ll therefore not even waste much of time on this. Hence 5G is not in anyways spreading Covid-19. We should completely delink the two. The real enemy here currently confronting us is Covid-19 and not 5G technology.
Josh Kamanda
Bsc Math, MS Software Engineering, DRM
Software Engineer, Product Reliability Leader/Consultant
USA