By Camilla Rees
Recently, health advocates have learned that 4,000 enormous new ‘Jumbo’ 5G antennas, on giant monopoles, have been proposed for New York City streets in 25 different zip codes throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island, starting in more disadvantaged areas. Queens-based non-profit Wireless Broadband, Inc, as well as Manhattan Neighbors for Safer Telecommunications, and other local and national groups are protesting.
Despite growing awareness of biological and health risks from the radiation emitted by cell phones, wireless devices and wireless infrastructure, and of wireless technology inadequacies to close the ‘digital divide’ (as is claimed), or to meet the growing demand for broadband capacity, wireless antennas in New York City are still rapidly going up all around us.
The new Jumbo 5G antenna structures planned for City streets, each containing multiple antennas, on multiple tiers, are starting to raise big questions.
Odette Wilkens, Esq., of Wired Broadband, Inc., says, “City officials mistakenly believe that wireless is the fastest option and the better choice. It is not.”
Former FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, and CEO for twelve years of the wireless industry association (CTIA), says “Fiber To The Premises” (FTTP) is “futureproof” technology. Indeed, in testimony to Congress Wheeler said, “Wireless may be a last resort option in the most isolated areas, but it should not be a first resort for most of America”. He said the consequence of the finite nature of radio spectrum is that “it is not a full-fledged substitute for wired broadband”, and that we need a network that is futureproofed from becoming inadequate in a few years.
Why aren’t New York City officials listening? Even on aesthetics grounds alone, it’s hard to understand how City officials could be considering polluting our neighborhoods with these unattractive structures, at the same time destroying peoples’ hard-earned home equity with these eyesores.
Not only is Tom Wheeler, who comes from the heart of the telecommunications industry, now championing FTTP over wireless, but also the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) safety guidelines for Radiofrequency Radiation (RFR) have also been called into serious question recently by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in an historic legal case.
One of the key concerns revealed in the case is that the FCC relies on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in setting its RFR safety guidelines, but the FDA, it turns out, does not evaluate RFR from cell phones, wireless devices or infrastructure, like it does pharmaceutical drugs, RFR-emitting medical devices and microwave ovens. This means that proper assessment of the biological and health effects of RFR has not been conducted by a federal agency to justify the exposure guidelines.
Wilkens says, “We support wired broadband on many grounds, well beyond the health issues. Fiber will always provide faster transmission speeds than any generation of wireless. The industry tends to compare the speed of one generation of wireless to another, and tech folks and government officials get excited about improvement, rather than comparing how wireless is outperformed by fiber.”
According to Les Jamieson, member of NewYorkers4WiredTech.com,“If fiber is a superior technology that can offer quality service to close the ‘digital divide’, protect health, improve privacy, reduce energy usage, and not be prone to obsolescence or further costs for the City, then why are New York City officials permitting small cell antennas on utility poles, and now Jumbo 5G antennas? Given the facts, City officials should not be permitting any antennas at all.”
Camilla Rees is a member of Manhattan Neighbors for Safer Telecommunications.
It’s great to know that Westview News is providing this important coverage of plans for further proliferation of 5G antennas throughout New York City. Even high powered 4G antennas, as well as smart meters, have caused debilitating injuries to residents. There seems to be no recognition by city officials of the hazards to health, property, privacy, and personal rights to “quiet enjoyment” of public spaces. We need a large number of New Yorkers to contact the Mayor’s office, contact their city council members, state legislators, the health department, and Dept. of Information Technology to require fiber-optic-to-the-premises and turn off wireless antennas until FCC exposure regulations are updated with realistic and current data.
Thanks for publishing this important news and information – these unmonitored sources of microwave radiation are coming without our consent – an invasion of our health and privacy. People don;t realize that these can also emit millimeter waves at frequencies that are used for crowd control. And the FCC guidelines for exposure are currently being exposed themselves as inadequate and possibly fraudulent. The DC District Court of Appeals has demanded to hear why the agency refused to review them despite voluminous scientific evidence ot biological harms. Stay tuned. .
Excellent questions raised in this article. Why is New York City going wireless instead of installing fiber optics? This is the first time that I totally agree with Tom Wheeler … we need fiber to the premises whereever possible for all the reasons mentioned in Camilla Rees’ article.
We monitored New York City as part of the Global EMF Montioring Network, consisting of citizen scientists from around the world, and found that levels of radio frequency radiation were MUCH higher on streets in New York that had activated their small cell antennas than it was on adjacent streets where small cells have not yet been introduced. The differences were striking and can be found at http://www.globalEMF.net for those interested. For example, along 5th Avenue in Manhattan between 55th and 59th Street the maximum level reported was 1,690,000 microW/m2 as it has Verizon small cells and along 5th Avenue between the same intersections the maximum value was 335,000 (still too high but 80% lower). New Yorkers are tough but they shouldn’t have to tolerate these excessive exposure to Radio Frequency Radiation in their city.
Thank you so much for the great reporting on this issue. These jumbo poles are totally unnecessary. We already have such an over saturation of cell towers in this city. For internet the people would be much better served with fiber optic to the premises. More likely the poles are the ground work for self-driving cars and mobile augmented reality, technologies that we are told we want and need. But do we? What we need is a conversation about this vision of the future, Smart Cities, and the Internet of Every Single Thing. Thank you for starting one!
It’s a very bad idea. Why should we endanger our health when fiber optic can do the job better?
solo gli cyborg hanno bisogno di questo…gli umani no!!!!