5G technology is coming to the world of mobile phones in the very near future. In some parts of Japan, the United States of America, and Europe, it’s already here. Just as 4G was a huge leap up from 3G, 5G is supposed to herald a brand new era when it comes to the handheld technology we’ve all come to depend on during the past two decades. Devices are likely to become more innovative and more powerful. Connection speeds will become much faster. Handsets are likely to become more expensive in the short term, but that happens every time technology takes a step forward.
Many businesses and industries around the world are already eagerly anticipating the things that 5G may be able to do of them. One of them is the casino industry, which consists of thousands of online slots websites all over the world like UK Online Slots. Very few types of industry have benefited from mobile technology advancements as much as online slots websites have. Twenty years ago, there was no such thing as online slots at all. Nowadays, online slots not only exist, but they’re more likely to be played on a mobile phone than on a laptop computer. They’re a multi-billion dollar industry, and they’re only going to get bigger as technology advances and becomes faster. As far as the online slots websites and the companies who own them are concerned, 5G can’t come fast enough.
Not everybody is quite so enthusiastic about the potential of 5G, however. As is seemingly always the case when a new form of technology emerges, some people believe that 5G poses an inherent health risk to the general population and must be banned in order to provoke a spike in cancer diagnosis rates, and perhaps even deaths. Even some respected scientists and medical experts have come on board with the conspiracy theorists to make outlandish claims about the risks of 5G and what it might do to us. There are even a few committed anti-5G protesters who believe that it will bring about the end of all life on this planet, although the more moderate protesters accept that this isn’t particularly likely.
Those of you who were around at the time that mobile phones first began to become popular will remember hearing all of this before. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the internet was new, the conspiracy theorists of the time were adamant that the early mobile phones that were available back then were potentially lethal. We were told, by people who appeared to be qualified enough to make such claims, that every single mobile phone gave off radiation, and the longer we spent with our phones pressed up against our heads, the more radiation we were allowing our brains to soak up. Effectively we were all microwaving our brains, and the human race was at risk because of our idiocy. Needless to say, we’re all here twenty years later, and there’s no evidence that the human race’s use of mobile phones has caused even the tiniest increase in brain cancer.
Given that we’ve been here before when it comes to mobile tech advances, it’s only right that the majority of people are taking the doomsday predictions of the 5G naysayers with a pinch of salt – and now they also have some scientific facts to counteract their arguments with. Despite everything that anti-5G campaigners have claimed, the first-ever detailed safety test of 5G technology in the United Kingdom was carried out in the final week of February – and it revealed nothing at all. In fact, the highest level of 5G-related radiation detected was a minuscule 0.039% of the maximum allowable limit under current safety regulations. At such a level, damage to cells and DNA is impossible. In other words, 5G isn’t doing anything harmful at all.
Rather than confining their tests to one mast or one area, the country’s communications regulator Ofcom set up testing stations in sixteen different locations, split across ten of the UK’s largest cities. The results were similar everywhere. Nowhere did the amount of radiation exceed the 0.039% of safety level that had been picked up at the highest point, and nowhere were any other potentially harmful effects identified. This should be enough information for the anti-5G lobby to accept that their protests are misguided and end their campaign – although we suspect it won’t be.
Part of the misconception about the potential harm that 5G can do comes from the fact that the World Health Organization lists radio frequency radiation – which is what mobile signal transmissions are made up of – as ‘possibly carcinogenic,’ indicating that they may slightly increase the potential for cancer to occur in a person being subjected to them. The ‘possible’ indicates that the risk isn’t severe enough or observable enough for the WHO to be sure, and radio frequency radiation is placed in the same risk category as pickled vegetables. It’s considered to be less carcinogenic than alcohol. You’re more likely to get cancer from drinking a glass of wine while eating pickles than you are while using your mobile phone, but the campaign of misinformation is likely to continue.
For those of us who are looking forward to finding out what 5G can do for us, it may be a while before the full benefits of the new technology can be observed and appreciated. The main difference, however, will be speed. Internet connectivity will be now so fast that in areas where 5G connections are possible, the transfer of even large amounts of data will be almost instantaneous. It’s also hoped that 5G technology will eventually underpin the navigation of self-driving cars and make them a common feature on our roads, and allow for something called ‘haptic feedback’ – the ability to touch and feel the objects you encounter in the virtual world. Looking into the extreme future, this could even allow surgeons to perform operations from long distances, meaning the days of having to travel to the world’s best surgeons to receive the best possible medical care a thing of the past.
The truth is that we don’t yet know what the full benefits of 5G are likely to be. 4G was launched in late 2009, and it took several years before the full potential of that technology and connectivity was realized. It will likely take the same time again before we understand what we can and can’t do with 5G. The most important thing is that it’s coming – and no matter what internet conspiracy theorists tell you, it’s safe.
