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In May 2019, Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), testified before Capitol Hill that 5G wireless signals could decrease forecasting accuracy by 30 percent.
"This would degrade the forecast skill by up to 30%. If you look back in time to see when our forecast skill was roughly 30% less than it was today, it's somewhere around 1980," Jacobs said in May. "This would result in the reduction of hurricane track[ing] forecasts' lead time by roughly two to three days." A delay of two to three days could have a catastrophic effect on human life.
Still, these warnings haven't swayed regulators nor the cell phone industry. In August, Sprint announced more cities would be added to its 5G rollout plan. AT&T already has 5G available to corporate customers in various cities. Verizon already offers 5G to customers and has plans to expand, too.
"Right now the uncertainty is to what extent there will be an interference," he added. "In some sense the cause for education is to make sure that the existing weather sensing bands are protected and that 5G is in areas that are far enough away from where present weather sensors exist."
This does not mean 5G can't exist in states like Florida, but that the power might have to be turned down.
"If the power is turned down, there is a lesser likelihood that water satellites (that will sense the atmosphere) will sense the 5G network" instead, Gerth said.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has been dismissive of these concerns, which are only one of several in regards to 5G. As several experts told Salon last year, the effects of widespread use of mobile 5G need to be better-studied before it goes mainstream.
Why study when you can profit instead?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 06 2019, @09:24PM
Cell phones are, indeed, cool... and it's a great thing that the mass population has embraced them.
On the other hand, like they used to say about electronic calculators back in the 1970s: you need to know how to function without those things, and know when they're telling you the wrong answer. And FFS, try to "be" in the local world more of the time than you are squeezing yourself through the network and 6" screens...
My wife was flipping out the other day because I went to check on the boat after the storm, and took 40 minutes longer than she expected to "report in" with the expected "nothing to report"... seems my GPS tracker was popping around the local area +/- 500 yards and she thought I was running around trying to get help to pick up the pieces, freaking out because I hadn't answered her texts for 20 minutes...
Time was, I'd hop in a car with a dodgy fuel pump and drive 4 hours including across the Everglades, at night, with no phone or radio whatsoever... and, yet, I am still here, and with relatively few "disaster" tales to tell about what terrible things happened while I waited 10 minutes for help because I didn't have a cell phone. In point of fact, I think help came more quickly in pre-cell days because people didn't assume you had one.
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