What’s Really Behind the 5G Push?
The wireless industry has announced that we are in a “race to 5G.” The industry is cleverly pushing the same line in every country: We Americans, we French, we Japanese, we (you name the country), need to be the first to deploy 5G because it will somehow magically confer economic advantages over countries that adopt the technology more slowly.
But the real reason for the “race” has little to do with national economic prowess and more do with wireless industry profits. The industry faces stagnation. The ugly truth for these companies is that in the world’s advanced economies almost everyone who wants a cellphone already has one. So, there is little room for expansion by reaching the very few who don’t own one. In addition, with multiple carriers serving the same markets, intense price competition has driven down company profits. And there’s more:
Those with cellphones already have access to calls, texts, games, and the internet including social media, news, music, videos, online shopping and real-time financial information. There isn’t much that current users really want beyond these to conduct their daily lives.
Follow the Money
It turns out that in the United States, at least, prices for wired internet and telecommunications services to one’s home or business are regulated. Wireless prices, however, are NOT regulated. That means the wireless companies can charge customers whatever those companies wish. It’s no wonder then that the wireless companies want an all-wireless future, not just for cellphones, but for in-home entertainment and internet as well as business data and internet services.
There’s nothing the wireless companies would like better than for you to abandon your wired connections and become entirely hostage to their whims and their expensive service plans—plans that are not just for cellphones, but also for all internet access and entertainment in your home or business.
There’s another simple financial reason the wireless industry is pushing 5G. Naturally, it can only sell new 5G cellphones to people by convincing them that they must have 5G service. Otherwise, customers will hang on to their perfectly good 4G phones for a long time, satisfied with all the things they can currently do on them.
The Real Reasons Behind the Internet of Things
The wireless industry is promoting the so-called Internet of Things (IoT) as providing important conveniences. But, the IoT has little to do with our convenience. It is primarily an opportunity for manufacturers to sell billions more wireless devices and collect a lot more personal data on all of us. Those devices will be incorporated into countless appliances and other gadgets in our homes and businesses, added to critical infrastructure such as electric power grids, and integrated into so-called “smart cities.”
Here is industry’s logic: With most people already owning cellphones and having access to the internet wherever and whenever they want, “things” are the next big untapped market for the wireless carriers and for the IoT device and sensor makers. Never mind whether such devices and sensors benefit us or not.
In fact, wired connections would be more secure and reliable and would work just fine for the IoT for those of us who really want to connect appliances and other household items to the internet. But wired connections won’t fill the bank accounts of wireless CEOs and other top managers.
There are two more very important things about the IoT that you should know:
Besides selling you wirelessly connected devices that you probably don’t need, the IoT will 1) dramatically increase your exposure to wireless radiation from all those new wireless “things” in your environment and 2) make it possible for the wireless industry to gather information on your every move and your every interaction with these devices while in your home, your car and your place of work.
The industry will be silently retrieving information about you from the very devices they sell you. Your personal and business habits will be cataloged and then sold to the highest bidder.
You only need to follow the money to see why the industry is doing the things it is doing. By the way, it’s your money, and the wireless industry is trying to get more of it while providing little of value to you and subjecting you to physical harm in the bargain.
Do We Really Need 5G?
Most of the “wonders” being touted by the wireless industry—such as driverless cars, the Internet of Things, remote surgery by camera, and improved virtual reality—are things most people can live without (think: IoT), can be done better and more securely with wired connections (think: virtual reality), are better done in person (think: surgery), or are probably never going to be practical on a large scale (think: driverless cars).
If you become a 5G customer, you will be paying your wireless carrier to undermine your health, undermine your security, undermine your privacy and even undermine the value of your home.
Ask yourself: Who really wants to live in a shroud of intense radiation from a cellular antenna on a utility pole just outside his or her residence?
Don’t Fall for the Hype
People around the world are rising up and demanding that their health, their privacy and their security be safeguarded and that their right to choose a life free of wireless radiation dangers be respected. We hope you will become one of those who works with us to create a safe, reliable, secure system of internet and telecommunications—a system which integrates emerging technologies in a way that safeguards our health and our peace of mind.
The massive 5G advertising campaigns of the wireless giants and fawning 5G media coverage are designed to make you believe that 5G is good for you and that it’s inevitable. Neither is true. The time to stop 5G is now.