Health risks from 5G?
5G’s higher frequencies could, howev-
er, give rise to some as yet unknown
health risks. A group of 180 EU scien-
tists recently called for a moratorium
on the rollout of 5G until its health
implications had been independently
assessed. The group cites the need for
building many more 5G antennas in
built-up areas as a major factor, due to
the shorter distance that 5G waves can
travel, and reminds us that only 5Gs’s
benefits have been praised by the media,
but the consequences for the health of
humans, plants and animals have not
yet been discussed at all. One argument
being made is that, as 5G masts gener-
ate lower power transmissions, a much
denser mesh of them will therefore be
required. Typically, the EU’s response to
the matter of electromagnetic radiation
is that public safety is a matter for EU
member states themselves to sort out,
meaning there is no EU-wide approach
to assessing the safety of 5G.
Similar concerns about 5G’s health
implications have been voiced in the
US. In February, a Senate committee
hearing on the future of 5G learned that
no independent studies on the impact
of 5G on human health had been un-
dertaken at all, and US Senator Richard
Blumenthal summed it up concisely: he
believed Americans deserved to know
what the health effects are, but the 5G
industry was effectively ‘flying blind’
as far as any health or public safety as-
sessments were concerned (see: https://
youtu.be/ekNC0J3xx1w).
Coming to a hub near you
The technology sector industry is busily
tantalising us with the potential of 5G,
such as Vodafone’s demo last year of
the UK’s first 5G holographic call (see:
https://youtu.be/Ilq2qtFHTf8). It would
be churlish not to applaud early efforts
like these, which uses 3D video capture
and VR to offer a young football fan a
memorable moment or two with a ho-
lographic football star, but the lack of
any existing infrastructure hasn’t got
in the way of manufacturers queuing
up to advance-sell us the latest 5G kit.
First off the starting blocks is Taiwan’s
HTC, which trailed its new rechargeable
5G Hub for home or business use. The
Hub offers a 5-inch HD touch screen,
4K video streaming, connectivity to 20
devices and ‘Cloud VR support in the
future’. Plus, HTC reckons it will re-
place your home Wi-Fi router and all
the unnecessary cables that go with it,
being able to stream directly to a VR
headset without needing to attach a PC.
Looking at my motley collection of net-
worked Internet radios, PCs, NAS drives,
IoT gadgets, Google Minis, IP security
cameras, phones and lap-
tops, I’m not expecting to
throw that lot away any day
soon, but PE readers can
expect to see a barrage of 5G
hype heading their way well
before the end of this year.
Prices of the mobile hub have
yet to be announced: HTC’s
UK pressroom has not been
updated since 2017, but de-
tails were found on their US
site. You can see what the
HTC 5G Hub is about with
a short Youtube video at:
https://youtu.be/SGeNk9FiJMI
Already, the benefits of 5G are being
lauded with plenty of vapourware but
there is next to no working hardware
on retail sale and no assessments of
public health and safety have taken
place either. 5G promises much, but
who will be an early adopter?OneWeb aims for the stars
There are many places on earth that are
Internet ‘not-spots’ but the landscape
could be about to change, thanks to space
telecoms company OneWeb, which is set
to bring high speed to the remotest areas
of our planet. Headquartered in the UK,
OneWeb has already started building a
constellation of some 600 satellites, pos-
sibly scaling it up to 900 in the future,
with the intention of serving remote
users in homes, schools, businesses or
even on the move. OneWeb Satellites
(http://onewebsatellites.com) is a joint
venture between Airbus Industries and
OneWeb, and they are taking satellite
production to an industrial level. It used
to take hundreds of engineers months
to hand-build a single space satellite,
says OneWeb, but by using a modular
satellite design they can mass produce
a small 150kg satellite every eight hours- or 15 a week – at its factory in Florida
that is currently being commissioned.
OneWeb’s satellites will aim to pro-
vide low latency, high throughput and
global coverage. They are said to be
easy to manufacture, lighter in weight
and cheaper to launch and use fewer
components. The first six satellites in
OneWeb’s constellation were launched
successfully in February aboard a single
Soyuz rocket, and one can only marvel
at the engineering that was behind
the six-satellite separation sequence
shown on Youtube at: https://youtu.be/
MnJZ3gJ9bAY
Up to 36 satellites could be released
per launch in the future. Helped by some
UK Space Agency Funding, OneWeb
aims to develop novel AI techniques to
manage their fleet of satellites as well
as ways of interfacing with terrestrial
5G communications networks, holding
out the promise of OneWeb playing a
key role in delivering a far-reaching 5G
service down on the ground.Quantum leap
Flexibility and adaptability are keywords
for a new wave of satellites that are set
to revolutionise space-bound telecoms.
Eutelsat’s new Quantum satellite is a
product of Airbus Industries and the UK
and European Space Agencies, and has
been dubbed a ‘software-driven satellite’,
said to be the first satellite ever produced
that can be completely reprogrammed
in orbit to cover different (or multiple)
geographical areas, as explained at:
https://youtu.be/0iKgOahW5y
Quantum can also be re-tasked to
deal with governmental duties, such as
public protection or disaster recovery,
for example. The Quantum’s platform
has been built in Britain by Surrey
Satellite Technology (SSTL) and the
satellite is currently being readied by
Airbus in Toulouse.Maplin opens its doors
The former UK electronics mail-order
house and retailer, Maplin, has finally
re-opened for business under an entire-
ly new business model. Now trading as
Maplin Online Ltd, the new web-only
presence is a valiant attempt to keep
an old brand alive, but the firm is fo-
cussing on gadgets, IoT, makers and
STEM, gaming, smart tech, AV and
similar lines instead. Here at PE we be-
lieve that having more choice is a good
thing for hobbyists and students, and
we wish the new enterprise well in its
endeavours. For all your component-lev-
el needs, however, please do continue
to support our very hard-working ad-
vertisers who strive to offer readers
a comprehensive mail-order service,
often going the extra mile to provide
constructors with a friendly helpful
and informed source of kits and parts.
See you next month for more tech
commentary from Net Work!OneWeb successfully launches the first six of its fleet of
600 satellites in February.The author can be reached at:
[email protected]