So much hysteria is strewn in the way of 5G, the fifth generation of wireless telecommunications technology. One way to understand the difference between the present, and 5G technology, is to remember, “New Improved,” the payoff line of a detergent soap advert.
A childhood friend, Prof Kola Odunaike, a physicist at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Ìwòye, Ogun State, submits, “I personally see the current situation (the hysteria on 5G), as technological rivalry between the USA and China, to beat one another (to dominate the) world economy.”
Prof Odunaike vouches that radio waves are not radioactive, “therefore, 5G should not be a pandemic as some novices are claiming.” Sound bites from a video that hasn’t been denied show Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of the Love World Ministry, otherwise known as Christ Embassy, claiming that “What killed people in Wuhan, China, is not (coronavirus), it was the 5G.”
Though science may not uphold his theory, Oyakhilome’s argument that, “You cannot hide from the virus by staying in your house… it can be borne by wind,” (because it can access even the remotest recess of your house), is valid– if science insists coronavirus is airborne.
In another video, he speculates that some faceless persons intend “To achieve pandemic coronavirus… to create fear, and with the fear, you will be ready for the vaccine (possibly the biblical mark of the beast, by) using military grade level of connectivity– 5G… whose signals… make people sick!”
But Dr. Andrew Akala, an associate professor, communication, navigation and space scientist at the University of Lagos, insists, “With zero hazards from the materials point of view, we are good to go with the 5G technology.”
Akala provides more insights: “5G, like other earlier generations of Information Communication Technology… will operate within radio frequency band of the Electromagnetic fields wave spectrum, (which) are not inimical to human health, because they are non-ionized, unlike the ionised X-rays and gamma ultraviolet radiations.”
It looks as if X-ray and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging procedures would sooner kill than whatever rays are emitted from your Android phone, therefore no harm should come your way if you embrace this new improved technology.
To further allay people’s fears, Akala explains, “Electromagnetic fields within the radio frequency range are not inimical to health, (and) connecting coronavirus disease… to 5G technology… has no place in science.”
He reveals: “The frequencies of operations are usually approved by regulating national agencies of nations, based on the recommendations of International Telecommunication Union… (and) as control measures, the World Health Organisation is usually interested in knowing the health implications of these technologies before they are rolled out.”
Odunaike, mentioned at the beginning of this piece, recalls the laughable response of technology laggards to the installation of street lights in London of 1830. They accused government of interfering with God’s design of separating day from night; that it would disrupt sleeping patterns and cause other disorders.
Akala thinks the science community can disabuse the minds of the fretful public by interrogating the materials used, or will be used, as radiators on telecommunications masts, in constructing the masts and other accessories, and the electronic components of the handheld devices.
He thinks the science community should query the source, or expected source, of optical fibre used for data transmission, and run laboratories that will enable a fuller understanding of the new technology.
Odunaike, who agrees with Akala that 5G is just an upgrade to the 4G, traced the journey from 1G to 5G; a journey of cumulatively higher carrying capacity of data, faster speed, clearer view, and more sophisticated and expensive equipment.
According to Odunaike, First Generation were cellphones, presented in 1982, but concluded in mid-1990, and were “used for voice benefits, and depended on the technology called Advanced Mobile Phone System.”
The primary highlights of this stage of mobile telephone technology were speed, up to 24 kilobytes per second, analogue signals, but had poor voice quality, low battery life, was susceptible to security breach, and had limited reach in secluded areas.
Second Generation, developed through the 1990s, and with data speed of 64kbps, utilised digital signals for voice transmission, instant messaging and multimedia messaging, but had low quality picture, audio, messaging, constrained coverage, and unexpected dropped calls.
Primary highlights of the Third Generation, with 2mbps speed, were increased data transfer rate that enabled web-based applications, video documents, expansive send/get email messaging capacity, TV streaming, mobile TV, and mobile phone calls.
The Fourth Generation, with downloading speed of 10 mbps to 1gbps, had the same features as 3G, but offered extra services, like multimedia newspapers, clearer TV pictures, and combination of Wi-Fi and Wi-Max.
It provided more universal signals reception, had low cost per bit, but higher batter consumption, hard to implement, content could be easily accessed without authorisation, and its frequencies could be jammed.
During the Cold War era, the Soviet Union regularly jammed the signals of America’s short wave radios, like Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, so that capitalist, codenamed imperialist, propaganda will not reach the “unspoiled” USSR citizens.
Now, not quite the Final Word, is the Fifth Generation, with data rate speed of approximately 100 mbps, improved media signalling efficiency, enhanced creative data coding techniques, millimeter waves frequencies for wireless access, concurrent vast number of connections, and surprisingly, lower batter utilisation.
5G is highly supportive of Wireless Worldwide Web, substantial broadcast of data in gbps, large phone memory, dualing speed, lucidity in sound, video, voice, and supports intelligent multimedia and Artificial Intelligence manipulations.
Tunde Odediran, a friend, who veered from journalism into ICT, and is now Global Head of IT Asset Management for Mott MacDonald, an American engineering and consulting corporation, thinks there is immense value in 5G.
He explains that with 5G, “remote events will be available in real-time– no latency, no delay (or lag, and messages will be) delivered within milliseconds, faster than your ability to react reflexibly.”
Odediran explains: “Owing to fears of potential espionage and theft of intellectual information by Chinese vendors (of 5G hardware and software)… the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom… restricted the use of Chinese technology in their 5G networks. Some see this as an attempt to slow the economic benefits to China, which has been aggressively deploying the hardware.”
Odunaike thinks that 5G can generate about three million New Economy jobs for Nigerians, and add $5 billion to the Gross Domestic Product of an economy that even the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics will acknowledge is reverting into a recession, courtesy of the lockdown from coronavirus pandemic.
Like Odunaike, Odediran recognises that conspiracy theorists, on hyper overdrive, links 5G to the prevailing coronavirus pandemic, because they are essentially anti-techs, if not exactly Luddites, who think, (rightly one might have to admit), that it will radically alter life as it is known today. Odediran uses the word, disruptor, to herald this imminent gamechanger.
Maybe Nigerians should be more concerned with the potential capability of 5G technology for use in invading their privacy, the same way, “Big Brother,” in George Orwell’s novel, “1984,” demonstrates the power of the state to pry into unwary citizens’ privacies.
The phrase, “Big Brother is watching you,” should nettle Nigerians more than the needless hoax that connects 5G to the coronavirus pandemic, and quit unwittingly fighting “someborry’s” else’s private war.
Twitter @lekansote
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