AT&T Won't Stop Lying About 'Fake 5G'

from the zero-actual-oversight dept

Big wireless carriers haven't been exactly honest when it comes to the looming fifth-generation wireless standard (5G). Eager to use the improvements to charge higher rates and sell new gear, carriers and network vendors are dramatically over-hyping where the service is actually available, and what it can actually do. Some, like AT&T, have gone so far as to actively mislead customers by pretending that its existing 4G networks are actually 5G. AT&T took this to the next level last year by issuing phone updates that changed the 4G icon to "5GE" on customer phones, despite the fact that actual 5G isn't really available.

Sprint sued AT&T last year for being misleading, but the suit was settled (likely so Sprint could focus on its merger with T-Mobile) without much coming of it. AT&T's competitors also complained via the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division (NAD), which is a "self-regulatory" system designed to help companies settle disputes without the involvement of regulators. After a year of bickering and appeals, NARB (the enforcement arm of NAD) finally ruled last week that the practice was misleading and the ads should be discontinued:

"Agreeing with NAD’s findings and recommendations, the NARB panel determined that both claims will mislead reasonable consumers into believing that AT&T is offering a 5G network and recommended that the claims be discontinued. At NAD and on appeal, it was not disputed that the AT&T network is not a 5G network. The NARB Panel agreed with NAD’s analysis and concluded that the term “Evolution” is not likely to alert consumers to the fact that the service is not 5G. The Panel noted that the current prevalent technology in wireless is 4G LTE, and LTE stands for “evolution.” Thus, consumers may well interpret “Evolution” in the challenged claims as signifying that AT&T’s technology has already evolved into 5G."

AT&T says it will stop using the ads (months after they'd already aired), but there's no indication that AT&T will stop using the fake 5G icon on user phones, because the icons themselves aren't technically ads:

"But AT&T said the NARB's recommendation only applies to its advertising and therefore will not affect the one element that really matters: Its service icon..."

Again, such "self regulatory" systems are usually designed to pre-empt actual, tough actual regulatory enforcement, often to the detriment of confused consumers and the truth. I've lost track of the times over the last decade NAD doled out a dainty wrist slap months or years after the misleading advertisements have aired, be they false claims of nationwide wireless coverage or bogus ISP claims about the availability of fiber. With the FCC all but an absentee landlord in the Trump era, there's simply no accountability for misleading your customers provided you're even marginally clever about it.

In this case, AT&T can keep pretending its 4G network is 5G, right up until actual 5G is made available to those customers. But the industry's efforts to misrepresent where 5G is and what it can do have a major downside the industry has chosen to ignore: it "teaches" consumers to associate 5G not with better service, but with hype and disappointment. And with studies showing that US 5G is actually far slower and spottier than many overseas deployments, there's going to be a lot of disappointment to go around.

Filed Under: 5g, advertising, fake 5g, truth in advertising
Companies: at&t, better business bureau

Verizon Tries To Temper 5G Enthusiasm After Report Clearly Shows US 5G Is Slow, Lame

from the ill-communication dept

For the better part of two years, Verizon has insisted that fifth-generation wireless (5G) would revolutionize everything. Simply by upgrading from 4G to 5G, Verizon repeatedly insisted, we'd usher forth a "fourth industrial revolution," resulting in smarter cars, smarter cities, and an endless array of innovation. 5G technology was so incredible, Verizon insisted, that it would also quickly usher forth incredible new cancer cures, allowing doctors to conduct remote heart surgery while wearing VR/AR headsets from the back of a rickshaw.

Granted 5G was never actually that exciting. While an important update in terms of faster and more reliable mobile networks, the technology was rushed to market in such a way that coverage was sparse and overstated, 5G handsets were expensive and clunky, and service plans were equally pricey. Worse, recent studies have suggested that because the U.S. lacks a lot of the mid-band spectrum available in other countries (read: policy failure), 5G in the United States is going to be significantly slower and not all that much different than 4G (at least for a while).

On the heels of one particularly damning 5G report on slow US speeds by OpenSignal, Verizon is now suddenly attempting to temper enthusiasm, noting that 5G at first won't be all that much different from existing 4G networks:

"In the beginning, you're going to see some improvements. Over time, dramatic improvements," Vestberg said. "We already have one of the best 4G networks in the world, so that's what you're competing with. It's not like you're competing with an inferior 4G network. In the beginning, it's going to be small [improvements on 5G]."

Verizon's problem is that while the company will be deploying a lot of millimeter wave (mmwave) spectrum in key urban markets, that flavor of 5G lacks range and can't penetrate walls particularly well (for 5G conspiracy theorists, that means the technology is less likely to penetrate your skin and harm you, as well). For most users, what you see now with 4G is what you'll get for several years to come:

"But millimeter-wave frequencies don't travel as far as low- and mid-band radio waves and are easily blocked by walls and other obstacles, making them unsuitable for nationwide coverage. As such, Vestberg was asked whether consumers will see a noticeable difference between 4G and 5G in areas without millimeter-wave coverage. Vestberg said that customers will eventually see "dramatic improvements," but not in the near term."

Again, that's a far cry from Verizon's marketing materials. Especially the ads insisting that 5G will revolutionize healthcare (despite the fact that most hospitals will continue to use existing WiFi and fiber connections and not less reliable cellular, no matter how speedy). U.S. consumers, who already pay some of the highest prices in the world for Verizon 4G service, will also need to pay $10 extra a month (you know, just because), and shell out significant cash for early-adoption 5G devices that are fatter, more expensive, and have worse battery life than their current gear.

Again, 5G five to ten years from now will be a good thing in that it provides faster speeds, lower latency, and more resilient networks. For now though, the consensus remains that 5G has been aggressively over-hyped to spur lagging smartphone sales and network gear orders, and there's no need to rush toward 5G's "transformative" technology anytime in the next year or two.

Filed Under: 5g, enthusiasm, oversold
Companies: verizon

Idiots Begin Attacking US 5G Cell Towers Because, Idiots

from the ill-communication dept

On one end, you've got wireless carriers claiming that 5G is some type of cancer-curing miracle (it's not). On the other hand, we have oodles of conspiracy theorists, celebrities, and various grifters trying to claim 5G is some kind of rampant health menace (it's not). In reality, 5G's not actually interesting enough to warrant either position, but that's clearly not stopping anybody in the post-truth era.

Baseless conspiracy theories about the health impact of 5G have gone next level during the pandemic. To the point where facts-optional nitwits are not only burning down cell towers in the UK, but putting razor blades and needles underneath protest posters on telephone poles (apparently you solve public health risks by... putting peoples' health at risk?). Now the Department of Homeland Security has had to issue warnings here in the States after several similar attacks were launched against US telecom infrastructure over the last few months:

"Since December 2019, unidentified actors conducted at least five arson incidents targeting cell towers in Memphis, Tenn., that resulted in more than $100,000 in damages,” the DHS reports say. “Additionally, 14 cell towers in western Tennessee, between February and April, were purposely turned off by way of disabling their electrical breakers," according to separate DHS field intelligence reporting. In April, arsonists set fire to a major cell tower in Portland, Ore., damaging electrical components at the base of the structure."

The overwhelming scientific evidence currently available indicates that not only is 5G not a serious risk to human health, but some aspects of 5G (especially millimeter wave deployments) are, in many instances, less powerful that existing 4G signals. 95% of the time when you see somebody insisting 5G hurts your health, they're badly misinterpreting debunked studies or this decades old chart. Assuming they're even pantomiming any respect for properly peer-reviewed science in the first place.

The DHS intelligence report states that it's very likely that these attacks will be increasing throughout the year, as a growing crop of nitwits "learn" about the technology online. Sometimes from ordinary domestic crackpots and grifters, but also via foreign governments (Iran, China, Russia) hoping to accelerate the US' descent down the conspiracy idiot rabbit hole:

"Violent extremists have drawn from misinformation campaigns online that claim wireless infrastructure is deleterious to human health and helps spread COVID-19, resulting in a global effort by like-minded individuals to share operational guidance and justification for conducting attacks against 5G infrastructure, some of which have already prompted arson and physical attacks against cell towers in several US states."

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.

Filed Under: 5g, attacks, conspiracy theories

Canadian Wireless Carriers Making A Killing During COVID-19, Won't Remove Caps 'For Safety'

from the pandemic-price-gouging dept

Canadians already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world thanks to limited competition and feckless regulators. With COVID-19 forcing everybody to stay at home, rural Canadians are now being pummeled with even higher bills than ever before. Especially those in rural areas forced to use capped, throttled, and otherwise restricted wireless lines as their primary connections:

"Rosette Okala was expecting her Rogers bill to be higher last month — because she's working from home during the pandemic and doesn't have unlimited internet — but not hundreds of dollars higher. It shot from about $160 per month to $540. Okala lives in a part of Pickering — just outside Toronto — that is considered rural. So she has to connect to high-speed internet through a cellular network because her area lacks cable or fibre optic infrastructure. She pays $145 a month for 100 gigabytes, anything above that is $5 per GB.

"This is just a slap in our face," said Okala. "We [rural customers] pay huge bills just to be able to do something basic that most people take for granted."

Analysts have long noted that usage caps and overage fees aren't technically necessary as they don't really manage network congestion. Like their US counterparts, Canadian broadband providers have temporarily lifted usage caps on fixed-line networks. But they've done nothing about the same restrictions on wireless, despite the fact that such connectivity is the only option many rural users have. In part because of the fact that, despite receiving billions in subsidies, many of these same companies have failed to uniformly deploy fixed-line broadband and fiber.

Given the sophisticated nature of network deprioritization and throttling technology, carriers can now easily offer "unlimited" data plans that throttle your connection after a set amount of bandwidth. Or restrict the consumption of higher definition video (Verizon bans HD and 4K video entirely on some mobile plans here in the US). Instead, consumer groups say, wireless carriers in the US and Canada haven't lifted such restrictions because price gouging uncompetitive markets is the entire point:

"Data caps are definitely unnecessary," said Tribe. "We see them as a punitive mechanism to make sure that people suppress the amount of data that they use and overpay when they go over what they want."

As an added bonus, they also create a system carriers can use to hamstring competition, by making other companies' content count against the cap, while their own streaming services don't. For its part, the Canadian telecom lobby insists that it can't lift usage caps or temporarily waive overage fees because it's an issue of "public safety":

"The issue comes down to the capacity that those networks are actually able to handle," said Rob Ghiz, executive director of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.

He says there's a difference between broadband in urban areas, where caps have been lifted, and rural areas where they rely on cellular connection through a hub, which are designed using a low-band spectrum — great for distance, but the system can't carry a lot of data."

But again, data routinely shows that monthly caps don't manage congestion, since a limit on overall monthly usage doesn't do much to prevent network issues at peak times. There's a universe of network management tricks companies can use to mitigate this impact, which is why so many offer "unlimited" data plans that aren't really unlimited. These carriers could help out by offering such plans to these rural users, then throttling the connections during peak congestion or banning HD video. But it's more profitable to do nothing, then point to the congestion bogeyman and shrug.

Much like the States, this is all made possible due to mindless mergers and consolidation, which has resulted in little real competition among the remaining 3 major Canadian wireless providers (something the US is copying with the recent Sprint T-Mobile merger). Combine that with feckless revolving door regulators whose primary interest usually lies in protecting dominant carrier revenues, and the end result is never particularly surprising.

Filed Under: canada, data caps, wireless
Companies: rogers

US Press Continues To Help Prop Up Bullshit 5G Conspiracy Theories

from the ill-communication dept

On one hand, we have wireless companies trying to insist that 5G is some type of cancer-curing miracle (it's not). On the other hand, we have oodles of conspiracy theorists, celebrities, and various grifters trying to claim 5G is some kind of rampant health menace (it's not). In reality, 5G's not actually interesting enough to warrant either position, but you'd hardly know this reading the US and UK press.

While the wireless industry's 5G hype machine has quieted somewhat during COVID-19 (though I'm still waiting for some marketing department to suggest it will easily thwart the pandemic), the folks on the conspiracy-theory end of the spectrum have only gotten louder. To the point where they're not only burning down cell towers in the UK, but putting razor blades and needles underneath protest posters on telephone poles:

"OpenReach workers were told to take care after blades and needles were found behind protest signs. It comes amid a rise in the number of attacks on engineers, fuelled by a conspiracy theory wrongly linking 5G and coronavirus. There were 68 incidents of verbal and physical abuse since 1 April as opposed to 42 for all of 2019, OpenReach said.

Just to be clear: you're protesting the unscientific claim that 5G puts public health at risk by... putting public health at risk?

While it's hubris to insist we know everything about wireless' impact on human health, the science we do have points to a very clear conclusion: 5G isn't going to hurt you. In fact, in many ways 5G is potentially less harmful than previous iterations given that the millimeter wave spectrum being used in many cities can barely penetrate walls, much less human skin. Glenn Fleishman, who has covered wireless networking for decades, has one of the better pieces on the subject, here.

A lack of supporting evidence hasn't stopped news outlets like the New Republic from running inflammatory pieces like this one insisting that 5G poses a serious threat. In it, the outlet interviews a mom who believes her family's health is being put at risk due to nearby 5G signals, based entirely on a handful of "evidence" the news outlet treats very, very seriously:

"Her husband and children, she told me, trusted she was doing the right thing. “If anyone thought I was crazy, they didn’t say so,” she said. “I didn’t know much about this topic before Crown Castle placed that antenna. Then I read the science, and now I know more than I ever wanted to know. We live with involuntary 24/7 radiation, even in my children’s beds as they sleep."

One of the studies that prompted her concern was a 2018 report by the National Toxicology Program, a branch of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. Commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration to examine the human health risks of cell phone radiation, NTP researchers placed lab rats in “reverberation chambers”—metal boxes resembling microwave ovens—and, over a period of two years, exposed certain rats for nine hours a day, every day, to EMFs of the type that flow ubiquitously from Wi-Fi hubs and cell sites into our laptops, iPads, smartphones, and, of course, our bodies.

But that study, which insisted there was "clear evidence" that cell phone radiation in male rats can cause cancers and precancerous lesions in the heart and brain, doesn't actually prove what it claims it proves. Ars Technica in particular has done a good job debunking the study, noting repeatedly that the study was "riddled with red flags" and not peer reviewed. In fact the study is so controversial, the control study rats -- which weren't exposed to any radiation at all -- died earlier than those that weren't. In short it doesn't show what 5G conspiracy theories claim it does. Like, at all.

There's numerous other problems with the New Republic piece, outlined well by Joel Hruska at Extremetech, who concludes:

"This is not a piece of journalism. It’s a piece of propaganda written by an author who knows exactly how to create a solid-seeming article, to feed a line of argument he’s been making for a decade using the same rhetorical techniques and half-disclosed facts. The New Republic is in desperate need of a science editor."

For numerous reasons (a lack of competent and well compensated health and science editors and reporters being among them), this is a cycle of conspiracy and dysfunction we just can't seem to escape from. As we've noted more times than we can count, most of the "supporting science" critics of 5G say "prove" that 5G is a health hazard does nothing of the sort. Such as this 20 year old chart by physicist Bill Curry, which conspiracy theorists repeatedly insist proves that human tissue damage increases with the rising frequency of radio waves:

But several reports, including this lengthy New York Times piece from last year, have repeatedly shown that the chart isn't, and has never been, accurate:

"It doesn’t penetrate,” said Christopher M. Collins, a professor of radiology at New York University who studies the effect of high-frequency electromagnetic waves on humans. Dr. Curry’s graph, he added, failed to take into account “the shielding effect.” You Make the Call: ‘Moving Forward With the American Dream’ in New Jersey Dr. Marvin C. Ziskin, an emeritus professor of medical physics at Temple University School of Medicine, agreed. For decades, Dr. Ziskin explored whether such high frequencies could sow illness. Many experiments, he said, support the safety of high-frequency waves."

You'll still see the chart, and the debunked study from the National Toxicology Program, tossed around as gospel anyway -- largely because, as Jonathan Swift wrote as early as 1710: "falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it."

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracies, conspiracy theories, health, journalism, radiation
Companies: the new republic

Study Shows US 5G Is An Over-hyped Disappointment

from the we're-not-#1 dept

We've noted for a while that the "race to 5G" is largely just the byproduct of telecom marketing departments and lobbyists hoping to spur lagging smartphone sales and scare lawmakers into obedience. Yes, fifth-generation wireless (5G) is important in that it will provide faster, more resilient networks when it's finally deployed at scale years from now. But the society-altering impacts of the technology are extremely over-hyped, availability has been dramatically overstated, and even if it was a "race," our broadband maps are so terrible (by industry design) it would be impossible to actually determine who won.

Even if you still want to view 5G as a race, there's very little indication we're actually winning it.

A new study by OpenSignal looked at crowdsourced 5G network performance data around the world, and included this telling chart comparing US 5G speeds to the rest of the world:

Sure, doubling 4G speeds isn't nothing. But it's sure as hell not the society-transforming technology we've been repeatedly promised. And in stark contrast to a lot of rhetoric about US 5G supremacy coming from the telecom sector and its BFFs at the Trump FCC, the data so far is aggressively disappointing.

Why is the US lagging behind other nations? One, because while 5G is wireless, you still need fiber fueling towers and providing backhaul country wide. But like so many aspects of US broadband, the companies that feed cell towers enjoy a very comfortable monopoly in most markets. A monopoly protected and propped up by the captured Trump FCC. Thanks to monopoly power and regulatory capture, the incentive just isn't there to deploy fiber anywhere it doesn't make the most immediate sense from an ROI perspective. Limited competition, spotty fiber, captured regulators, slower speeds.

The other problem, as the study explains, is US spectrum policy failure. Whereas many foreign countries have worked overtime to free up valuable, faster mid-band spectrum for public use, the US has lagged well behind on this front. The biggest holders of said spectrum are the Department of Defense and a handful of corporations, neither of which the FCC has had the courage to meaningfully pressure. It was something FCC Commissioners like Jessica Rosenworcel complained about just last year.

Instead, we've relied heavily on low spectrum bands (decent at providing service at range but not much faster than 4G), or high-band, millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum (which offers very fast speeds in select urban areas, but suffers from distance and wall penetration issues). The result is 5G networks that are offering a fraction of the speeds seen elsewhere around the world, Open Signal notes:

"Now, we find 5G is faster than Wifi in seven out of eight leading 5G countries but 4G is faster than Wifi in only two of these countries, Australia and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. is the exception, where Wifi continues to offer a small edge over 5G because of the large number of U.S. 5G users connecting on widely available, but relatively slow, 5G networks that are deployed using low spectrum bands...Cellular connectivity will not replace Wifi anytime soon."

The study, in one swipe, puts to bed claims that 5G is a "race" that the US is somehow winning through sheer ingenuity and industry coddling deregulation, and that 5G will be some sort of competitive panacea (high prices also hamstring it in this area). OpenSignal has a whole separate study on why 5G won't be supplanting WiFi anytime soon. All of this runs, again, in pretty stark contrast to claims by companies like Verizon that 5G is some widely available, near mystical technology that will revolutionize everything from smart vehicles to modern medicine.

This is all before you get to the fact that carriers are aggressively overstating where 5G is actually available, and trying to prevent the government from accurately mapping availability. Or the fact that most 5G headsets are (for now) expensive, fatter battery hogs the majority of consumers aren't interested in. Or the fact that carriers like Verizon are trying to charge extra for 5G, when US consumers already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world.

So on one side, we have captured regulators and wireless marketing departments falsely claiming that US 5G is going to revolutionize everything, including cancer treatment (it's not). On the other hand we have conspiracy theorists insisting that 5G is some cancer-causing Godzilla. But the reality is 5G simply isn't that interesting, powerful, or dangerous. It's a modest evolution, not a revolution. And while it will certainly be a good thing many years from now when it's fully deployed, mindless hype has been its most notable attribute thus far.

Filed Under: 5g, broadband, competition, fcc, hype, race to 5g, us

Dish's Wireless Network, A Cornerstone of the T-Mobile Merger, Is Already On Shaky Ground

from the empty-promises dept

If you recall, the biggest downside of the $26 billion Sprint T-Mobile merger was the fact that the deal would dramatically reduce overall competition in the U.S. wireless space. Data from around the globe clearly shows that the elimination of one of just four major competitors results in layoffs and higher prices due to less competition. It's not debatable. Given U.S. consumers already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world, most objective experts recommended that the deal be blocked.

It wasn't. Instead, the Trump FCC rubber stamped the deal before even seeing impact studies. And the DOJ not only ignored the recommendations of its staff, but DOJ "antitrust" boss Makan Delrahim personally helped guide the deal's approval process via personal phone and email accounts. Both agencies, and the vocal chorus of telecom-linked industry allies, all behaved as if all of this was perfectly legitimate and not grotesquely corrupt.

At the heart of the DOJ's approval was a flimsy proposal that involved giving Dish Network some T-Mobile spectrum in the hopes that, over even years, they'd be able to build out a replacement fourth carrier. As we noted at the time there was very little chance this plan was ever going to work.

One, Dish (and CEO Charlie Ergen) have a long history of empty promises in wireless. He'd been accused (including by T-Mobile previously) of simply hoarding valuable spectrum and stringing along feckless, captured regulators for years with an eye on cashing out once the spectrum's value had appreciated. Two, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all heavily incentivized to make sure this proposal never got off the ground. Three, the current FCC has yet to stand up to industry on a single issue of substance, would never engage in the kind of nannying required to usher Dish's plan from pipe dream to major network.

But with the pandemic, it's not even clear we're going to get to that part of the program. Reports now indicate that the pandemic and quarantine may have scuttled Dish's plans for financing and deployment, even if Ergen hadn't been bluffing. The complaints are largely coming from unsourced Wall Street insiders, but they're certainly right that funding the T-Mobile merger's deus ex machina just got notably more complicated:

"Ergen, the billionaire chairman of satellite-TV company Dish Network, needs to raise about $10 billion to build a 5G network that covers 70 percent of the US population by June 2023, fulfilling his part of a regulatory agreement that allowed Sprint to be acquired by T-Mobile on April 1.

But with the coronavirus wreaking havoc on the economy and drying up lending, Wall Street is predicting Ergen will fall behind — fast.

“I think whatever rosy projections Charlie had are now very questionable,” said a source who expected to be part Dish’s lending group. “There is no financing to build a telecom network."

Some analysts still seem to think Ergen could pull it off. But again, they're the same analysts who ignored red flags about Ergen's history, and all of the greasy corruption required to bring this merger to fruition in the first place:

"Two months of severe market uncertainty doesn’t really alter my view of a company to execute on a three-year plan,” Lightshed Partners Analyst Walt Piecyk told The Post, saying it is too soon to question if Ergen will meet the deadline.

But even just a few months of delay could put Dish in a worse spot financially as it‘s already the clear laggard among the four wireless networks, making for a riskier loan profile, sources said."

COVID-19 certainly does make financing and building a major wireless network difficult. But if Ergen was bluffing all along, the crisis will provide wonderful cover for Ergen to back out of a deal. That said, even if the network somehow does get built and become a major wireless replacement for Sprint, analysis suggests the end network would result in around 100 million fewer people in range of service than if we'd left Sprint intact. And that's in an ideal, non-pandemic world.

Most objective experts knew this merger was a turd, and the Dish effort was doomed to failure with the slightest disruption likely throwing a wrench in the works. But we rubber stamped the deal anyway. And by nearly every metric, history will remember the entire saga as little more than greedy imbecile theater while consumers and employees share the brunt of the inevitable fallout.

Filed Under: charlie ergen, competition, covid-19, mergers, wireless
Companies: dish, sprint, t-mobile

Jon Cusack The Latest Celebrity To Spread Nonsense About 5G

from the brain-worms-everywhere dept

Conspiracy theories have always plagued the deployment of new wireless technology. WiFi has no proven impact on human health, yet it has been a bogeyman for the better part of the last fifteen years. Fast forward to 2020, and social media is filled with "internet famous" folks claiming new fifth-generation (5G) wireless is part of a vast mind control conspiracy or a massive threat to human health. Russia, and likely other countries, have incorporated 5G for a few years into its online trolling operations, apparently believing it's another wedge issue that can be used to amplify already heated divisions in western countries.

During the coronavirus, the conspiracies surrounding 5G have exploded, with many "famous" Twitter users falsely linking 5G directly to the coronavirus. And in recent months, a lot of these bogus claims have been amplified by the likes of U.S. celebrities, who appear to be getting their health and science information from the "healing with crystals" set. Like Woody Harrelson, who last week vaguely suggested that 5G and the coronavirus are somehow linked. Or M.I.A., who in March doubted a COVID-19 link but falsely told her 650,000 followers 5G could slow down human healing:

This week, the honor belonged to John Cusack, who kept things vague in suggesting that 5G is just an ambiguous threat to human health:

While it would be hubris to suggest we have a full understanding of human health, the vast, overwhelming, scientific data to date suggests there is no health risk from 5G. If you want to read actual insight from an expert, I'd recommend this lengthy piece exploring wireless health concerns from Glenn Fleishman, who has been writing about and studying wireless networking for the better part of two decades. I'd generally trust him a bit more than an actor whose experience with wireless technology is largely of the fictional variety. Glenn's piece leans hard on numerous established studies, coming to this important conclusion on 5G:

"But the newness and differentness of 5G don’t matter. Whether we’re talking about 5G, 4G, 3G, Wi-Fi, or other consumer-level wireless technologies, the sum total of results from many studies and many years of research paints a straightforward picture—there’s nothing to worry about."

Of particular note in regards to 5G is that much of the millimeter wave spectrum being used for 5G (especially from the likes of Verizon) is millimeter wave, and has a hell of a time traveling very far or penetrating things like walls and human bodies:

"In particular, Wi-Fi and cellular networks, including 5G networks, use relatively high frequencies, which have short wavelengths. They don’t travel far and, the higher the frequency, the shorter the distance they can travel using the same power as lower frequencies. By deploying 5G densely, less power is needed, and by using high frequencies, it can’t penetrate far—whether through walls or into our bodies. Even though many more base stations will be deployed, they’ll be sending out far less power than today’s networking systems."

As Glenn also highlights on Twitter, the goopification of America and our distrust in establishment voices didn't happen in a vacuum:

Our susceptibility to bullshit is driven by a general, well-founded distrust in every last corner of the steadily eroded American establishment.

Folks are right not to trust the wireless industry, which engages in self-serving lying on pretty much a daily basis. They're right to not trust captured U.S. lawmakers and regulators from the FDA to the FCC. They're right to often distrust the courts, which have also been clearly hijacked in the service of myopic greed. And they're right to raise a skeptical eyebrow toward press outlets that, again more often than not, parrot press releases (this merger will be great! This surveillance technology has no downside!) in a way that uniformly winds up coming back to bite readers on the ass.

We've undermined any number of American institutions in a relentless quest for profit and power, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when the public now finds celebrities and internet randos a better source of authority and reason than our oldest institutions. If we want to fix the global disinformation problem, telling unqualified celebrities to shut up is a good start, but restoring the integrity of our institutions has to take priority.

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracies, coronavirus, health, john cusack, safety

5G Isn't Interesting Enough To Warrant These Stupid Conspiracy Theories

from the post-truth-pandemic-party dept

Fifth generation wireless (5G) is not magic. It's not witchcraft. It's not a "race." It's not going to kill you. And frankly, it's not even all that interesting.

We've noted for years now how 5G has been over-hyped by wireless carriers looking to spike lagging smartphone sales, or the gear makers hoping to cash in on global network builds. They've been busily trying to suggest that 5G is almost magic, capable of everything short of curing cancer. In reality 5G is barely available, expensive to adopt, and requires pricey new handsets that aren't worth it because we haven't figured out battery life issues. In time 5G will be a good thing in the way faster, more resilient networks are good, but it's not actually all that transformative.

On the flip side of the industry's relentless empty hype is the conspiracy theorists who, despite the overwhelming consensus of scientists, insist that 5G is bad for your health. While it would be hubris to claim we know everything about the way wireless technology impacts human biology, the science we have at the moment makes it clear 5G is not killing you. Theories to the contrary have always bubbled around the internet, but during the pandemic they've somehow gone next level, resulting in folks actually burning down 5G towers in the UK last week:

"There have been fires at masts in Birmingham, Liverpool and Melling in Merseyside. A video, allegedly of the blaze in Aigburth, was shared on YouTube and Facebook, claiming a link between the mobile technology and Covid-19.

Some foreign influence operations designed to try and wreak havoc have long circulated 5G-related bullshit among the internet gullible. But there's also a laundry list of assorted internet famous folks who've also been happily linking 5G to coronavirus on social media to either push an embedded ideology or just make a buck, like these two gentlemen--both verified and with 300K+ follower counts:

For those unfamiliar with Icke, he's a sort of proto-Alex Jones if Jones believed the world was secretly run by lizard people. He's a well known crackpot, but he has followers and a blue checkmark on Twitter.

Hell, even Hollywood celebrities like Woody Harrelson have been spreading around the bullshit, thanks in part to our new Goop mindset, which took the "healing powers of crystals" mentality and industrialized it at scale:

"Former “Cheers” TV star Woody Harrelson recently posted a report “about the negative effects of 5G” and its supposed role in the coronavirus pandemic to his more than 2 million Instagram followers. "I haven’t fully vetted it I find it very interesting,” he wrote of the report claiming that “5G radiation” is “exacerbating” the contagion’s spread and making it more lethal."

There's an endless list of problems that brought us to this point. Shoddy, sensationalist media. Poor education standards. Companies like Twitter find it impossible to police obvious, hugely-popular verified accounts that spread clear disinformation. Celebrity worship. Foreign and domestic disinformation campaigns we've yet to create solutions for. General human stupidity and gullibility. A prioritization of "engagement" over substance. A steady degradation of political norms. America's general, several-hundred-year old adoration of profitable bullshit.

There's no quick fix, there's only a simple individual answer: don't be part of the fucking problem. Fact check. Verify your sources. At least try to rely on actual scientists and widely-credible experts instead of the fun-loving dudebros at brainwaves5Gdeath.com.

Again, the ultimate irony being is that 5G isn't just safe and decidedly not a mind control experiment, but it's not even all that interesting. It's a spottily available, over-hyped, and expensive upgrade to the 4G networks you're already using. And while it will provide impressive speeds and more resilient networks in time, right now (at least in the U.S.), it's an over-marketed, under-delivered mess not worthy of this level of attention.

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracy theories, coronavirus, covid-19, david icke, woody harrelson

The T-Mobile Merger Closes, Highlighting Vast U.S. Media, Legal, And Policy Failures

from the less-competition-ahoy dept

T-Mobile and Sprint finally closed their controversial $26 billion wireless mega merger this week, opening the door to a new era in U.S. wireless with notably less overall competition and, inevitably, higher prices. The government, courts, much of the press, and many "top policy thinkers" of the era happily ignored 40 years of very clear global data showing that such consolidation in telecom reduces competition, raises overall prices, and inevitably results in a steady parade of layoffs. And most of them did so for all the usual reasons: either rigid partisan ideology, or the prioritization of profit above reason, empathy, or common sense.

But the deal's approval was also rife with an unprecedented amount of corruption, fraud, and regulatory capture -- even for the U.S.

The FCC rubber stamped the deal before it had even seen its own impact analysis data, with Commissioner Brendan Carr meeting with T-Mobile behind closed doors nine times to help the deal gain approval. T-Mobile slathered Trump's businesses with cash and hired Trump ally Corey Lewandowski shortly after Lewandowski mocked a kid with Down Syndrome on TV. DOJ antitrust boss Makan Delrahim, instead of doing his job, personally helped guide the deal's approval process via personal phone and email accounts.

Former FCC Commissioners from both parties lobbied for the deal, often without making their financial motives clear in media appearances and a steady parade of editorials. And that's before you get to the comically broken U.S. court system, which tied itself in knots ignoring every last shred of hard data just so the deal could proceed.

It's a merger that could only have been approved in the Trump era, given similar competition-eroding deals (AT&T T-Mobile in 2011, and Sprint T-Mobile in 2014) were shot down for good reason: global data, from Canada to Ireland, shows this kind of consolidation is almost always problematic. Less competition means higher prices. Unions and Wall Street analysts alike have estimated this particular deal could result, in time, with anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 employees being fired as redundant retail and management positions are eliminated. Studies even suggest people at other companies will likely be paid less.

And while the DOJ floated a half-cooked deal that will try to create a new replacement fourth carrier out of Dish Network and some twigs, most experts strongly doubt much ever comes from it for a laundry list of reasons. The most obvious being that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile will all be incentivized to make sure, via relentless lobbying, that this new fourth carrier never fully materializes. And barring any election-triggered change, the current FCC, known for being a glorified rubber stamp to industry, isn't likely to engage in the kind of nannying necessary to make sure the deal works, or punish companies that fail to live up to pre-merger promises.

As the deal closed this week, media outlets covering the news failed to include any of this as context. CNET, for example, largely repeated T-Mobile's claims with a focus on network performance, with not so much as a peep on how or why such a deal might be problematic for your wallet or T-Mobile employees. Ditto for TechCrunch, which briskly broke down the last year or two of sleazy lobbying as little more than "months of regulatory maneuvering" while giving extra weight to merger conditions that U.S. history makes clear will never actually be enforced:

"After months of regulatory maneuvering, T-Mobile and Sprint officially completed their $26 billion merger today....For consumers, it will seemingly take a little time before the effects of the transition are meaningfully felt. T-Mobile did not comment on the future of the Sprint brand in today’s announcement, but they have previously promised that subscribers will have access to “the same or better rate plans” for three years as part of the deal.

It's a form of tech news whitewashing, in which essential context is either downplayed or omitted entirely, giving the readership a false impression of the human and market cost of merger mania. It's a major reason why, like a purgatorial version of Charlie Brown and Lucy football, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again without learning from experience. Press outlets won't tell the full truth to protect ad revenue and source access. Regulators won't tell the truth to protect future lobbying appointments. Many analysts and consultants won't tell the truth because they're either blinded ideologically, or paid by companies to massage the math and ignore inconvenient data.

If the T-Mobile deal follows similar telecom deals of years' past, the next year won't see much change on T-Mobile's part, as it tries to pretend critics of the deal were wrong (while attention is still fresh) via a few theatrical promotions. While there have already been some layoffs (despite endless T-Mobile promises this deal would create jobs), the real layoffs won't arrive until year two or three. By year three, as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have grown comfortable with the lack of competition and a forgetful public and government, you'll see prices steadily climb upward for Americans, who already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world.

By then, none of the press outlets that happily parroted pre-merger promises will be bothered to go back and fact check whether those promises were true. Most of the regulators that approved the deal will be off to jobs at telecom-funded think tanks, and not a one will acknowledge resulting problems--or their role in them. Same thing for the analysts and experts that blessed the deal based on ideology or financial motives instead of logic; they too will have long moved on to providing cover for the the next profitable bad idea. And as always, it's the consumers and employees left holding the bag, higher bills, and pink slips. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, doj, fcc, merger, mobile, regulatory capture, wireless
Companies: sprint, t-mobile