5G and Shannon’s Law
First of all, this is an excellent explanation of 5G that anyone moderately technical can understand. Great article.<p>That said, do the numbers from the article concern anyone else at all? I&#x27;m generally all for progress, but more than 1 million devices per km2? And massive MIMO antenna arrays spraying EM waves in every part of the spectrum from 600 MHz to 50 GHz?<p>More than a million devices per km2 ~= 3 million devices per square mile. Am I the only one that thinks that&#x27;s a bit crazy? I don&#x27;t want everything from my toaster to my door to my water bottle to be transmitting massive amounts of information to who knows where all the time.<p>More concerning: the antennas. Current regular MIMO 4G towers are 2x2 or 4x4. Already, there are 5G towers installed today that are 128x128. These are planned to be spaced -extremely- densely in cities, and very close to people (on every floor of offices, on lampposts, etc.) This is a necessity due to the spectrum used. And not only that, but they&#x27;re using new spectrum that hasn&#x27;t been used before - instead of the MHz to low GHz range we all know and trust, 5G towers will be up to near 50 GHz (!). Especially the fact that millimeter wave&#x2F;extremely high frequency is normally blocked by everything from drywall to glass, but now we&#x27;re intentionally aiming massive amounts of EHF waves with hundreds of antennas in a small space.<p>Call me a luddite, but I&#x27;m more and more thinking that we need a high quality longitudinal study about any effects of this kind of stuff before we go from 2x2&#x2F;4x4 at well known frequencies to putting 128x128 EHF antenna arrays every hundred feet.