Global 5G deal poses significant threat to weather forecast accuracy, experts warn
A long-awaited international deal governing how the world's technology companies should roll out 5G technology poses serious risks to weather forecast accuracy, according to data from federal agencies and the World Meteorological Organization.
Negotiators from around the world announced a deal Friday at a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for how to roll out 5G technology that operates using specific radio frequency bands.
Studies completed before the negotiations by U.S. government agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the Navy had warned that 5G equipment operating in the 24-gigahertz frequency band could interfere with transmissions from polar-orbiting satellites used to gather weather data. This could make forecasts much less reliable, the reports found.
Specifically, these highly technical analyses concluded that if deployed widely and without adequate constraints, telecommunications equipment operating in the 24 GHz frequency band would bleed into the frequencies that NOAA and NASA satellite sensors also use to sense the presence and properties of water vapor in the atmosphere, significantly interfering with the collection and transmission of critical weather data.
The NOAA report, for example, warned of a potential loss of 77.4 percent of data coming from microwave sounders mounted on the agency's polar-orbiting satellites.
The agency's microwave sounders operate at a frequency of 23.6 to 24 GHz, which is close to the frequency that the Federal Communications Commission auctioned off the use of for about $2 billion beginning this past March.
The key concerns about 5G interference focus on what are known as baseline interference limits, often referred to as out-of-band emission limits.
Previously:
Hurricane Tracking Technology is About to Regress 30 Years
Ajit Pai Says NOAA and NASA Are Wrong About 5G Harming Weather Forecasts
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The FCC recently auctioned spectrum in the 24GHz band under controversial circumstances, as experts from other federal agencies warned that cellular transmissions in that band may significantly reduce the accuracy of weather forecasts.
When asked about the controversy at yesterday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Pai said that data provided by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is faulty. He also criticized the agencies for raising concerns "at the 11th hour."
Calling NOAA's study "fundamentally flawed," Pai said, "For example, it ignores the fact that 5G will involve beamforming, essentially adaptive antenna arrays that will more precisely send 5G signals—sort of a rifle shot, if you will, instead of a shotgun blast of 5G spectrum."
See also: 5G likely to mess with weather forecasts, but FCC auctions spectrum anyway
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: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday November 25 2019, @12:04PM (2 children)
It's either accurate weather data, or high-speed Facebook and lolcat videos. Ah, the agony of choice...
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday November 25 2019, @03:29PM
But this 5G will make people's weather apps run faster... Weather sites will have some awesome animations, even if they have to make up the data, because the satellite signals got washed out.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 25 2019, @11:13PM
Yeah...., for the 5% of the population that get to have 5G. The rest of us will get "5G", actually 4G LTE.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @01:02PM
also,
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/5g-weather-satellite-interference/ [digitaltrends.com]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261313864_Propagation_studies_on_rain_for_58_GHz_and_23_GHz_point_to_point_terrestrial_link [researchgate.net]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @01:07PM
We don't need weather, because everyone already works from home. America is the management headquarters of the world, and highly paid highly skilled Americans don't need to go outside to tell unskilled Chinese to make our stuff and unskilled Mexicans to mow our lawns and unskilled Indians to code our apps.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @01:35PM (4 children)
These so-called "experts" are just Soros employees working with the traitors at NOAA, trying to destroy the president.
It wasn't enough to fake the weather maps and try to defame the president before Hurricane Dorian, which hit Alabama harder than any other place in the world. And the lying media didn't show all the death and destruction there. Over 1,000 people died and tens of thousands were left homeless.
But the MSM doesn't care about Alabama, all they care about is making sure the fat cats who are hiding Epstein and ruining the nation have their solid gold bidets and baked kale. Scum!
Now they're trying to destroy our economy in advance of next year's election to sabotage the greatest president we've ever had.
Because the democunts hate America and want to destroy our way of life so Ilhan Omar's boyfriends (all 2,000,000 of them -- the whore) can run rampant all over our country bringing crime, violence disease and death to real Americans.
But we know better and we'll make sure we keep America great!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @04:47PM (3 children)
I miss our real donald trump
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @05:16PM (2 children)
Our rDT never once said "democunt."
*This comment (c) 2019, Citizens United Not Timid
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:19AM (1 child)
Did our RDT say goodbye, or did he just stop posting one day? If (s)he had a farewell post I missed it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @04:06AM
There was no farewell address [youtube.com] as far as I'm aware.
I suspect the person behind that account is still around, just posting under another account and as AC. I'm guessing he either got bored with it, or even he couldn't stomach that scumbag's duplicity and self-serving conduct any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @04:45PM (2 children)
https://science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Study%20prepared%20by%20NOAA%20and%20NASA%20-%20Results%20from%20NASANOAA%20Sharing%20Studies%20on%20WRC-19%20Agenda%20Item%201.13.pdf [house.gov]
which disappeared from NASA's site the last time this story made news
it is a MATLAB model
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @05:13PM (1 child)
Yes, but a fairly complicated MATLAB simulating base stations, user terminals, satellites and the geometries between them.
The study results map power levels to percent loss.
The last page says -20dbW/200Mhz causes interference above their threshold 77% of the time.
It's not clear what the consequencs of exceedit the threshold is or what powerlevel is being authorized.
Also, the sim assumes a particular antenna geometry. Does the authorization guarantee this?
It seems like what would be fair would be for the authorization to happen with the new folks as a secondary basis that has to shutdown if it causes problems to the existing satellites.
Or fund any sat mods the make sense.
The new folks should take the risk that this will work.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:22AM
> Or fund any sat mods the make sense.
While I'm no weather sat expert, it seems pretty clear that the weather frequencies were chosen based on physics--so changing the satellite to a different frequency doesn't make any sense at all.