Is Wi-Fi safe?

espresso

That is know as selective quoting! Why did you not quote this text from the article:

If the journalists were really concerned about the dangers of radio frequency electromagnetic radiation on the sensitive brains of the young, they should be calling for the closure of TV and radio transmission towers rather than asking us to turn off our wi-fi laptops.

The modulated frequencies that carry Radio 4 and ITV into our homes are just as powerful as the wireless networks, and a lot more pervasive.

And my wireless network is only carrying data when I'm online, while Radio 3 burbles all day long, possibly exciting electrons in my brain and causing headaches.

Then there is the danger from photons of visible light streaming down onto us as we work, since these carry more energy than microwaves and could surely do more damage.

Perhaps we should demand that our children work in the dark.

There is no point discussing this any more as you have already made up your mind on this topic.

:rolleyes:

superscaper

espresso wrote: »

That is know as selective quoting! Why did you not quote this text from the article:



There is no point discussing this any more as you have already made up your mind on this topic.

:rolleyes:

That was the bit I found most interesting and was going to quote it myself. I've said my personal view a couple of times that I really don't know whether it's harmful or not but I don't think it's worth worrying about. But now that I see that the OP was actually a rhetorical question I don't think there's anything that anyone could say that would make the blindest bit of difference on this thread.

peterbaker

Rhetoric? from little old Moi? You are too kind SS! I have just typed in What is rhetoric in google and the first definition is "using language effectively to please or persuade". I'll settle for that!

But seriously, everyday I too can be persuaded to demote my views in favour of conflicting ones. Ask my other half!

I have walked in front of many aircraft without thinking and will no doubt continue to do so until someone makes a Panorama, a Horizon, an Independent on Sunday front page and a Newsnight about it all in the same week perhaps! Then I might wake up!

Maybe that goes some way to explaining why I was married 13 years before our first born arrived!

Yes I did selectively dismiss the section about what motivates journalists. That's because journalists are notorious for pursuing simplistic argument to maximise their audience. They avoid complex stories because their audience won't buy it. The Pensions scandal is a great example. The media have been 5 years behind the story ever since it started becoming a problem, and they are still five years behind it, still dragging up the example of bankrupt employers and ASW workers as the best illustration of the problem they can think of, and completely missing the bigger picture which has seen the stable door wide open and bolted again without them really noticing a thing other than the continuing inconsequential loud background hiss! A bit like them missing the false start at the Grand National a few years ago and merely reporting that a particular group of racetrack punters were upset because their bets were off, and their day out ruined, due to some as yet unfathomed incompetence!

Need_More_Money_2

peterbaker wrote: »

You will not be surprised to learn that I disagree profoundly. And I am sure what you have said NMM is far better considered argument than Bill Thompson's.

The main thing I liked about the article was the way it described the precautionary principle. I thought I had referred to that already, but I think that might've been another thread.
The point is, why should we be so cautious about WiFi? We don't apply the same principle to everything in life. Should nothing new be introduced until absolute safety can be shown (which is impossible)? Is there something special about WiFi that merits a extra cautious approach? Some reason to believe it might be dangerous? My understanding (but it's not my field so I could be wrong) is that there is no known mechanism by which WiFi levels of microwaves could cause harm. This does not mean no mechanism will ever be found but why should we assume that one might, when we don't do the same with other things in life?
The example I used in another thread was of bananas. Do we know they are perfectly safe to eat (I pointed out that they are radioactive. Same goes for Brazil nuts)? Should we ban them in case at some point in the future we find that they are not entirely safe?

I would be interested if anyone knows the relative strengths of electromagnetic radiation that people are typically exposed to from TV and radio transmitters, mobile phone masts, and WiFi routers. I would guess that TV and radio transmitters tranmit with much greater power than Mobile phone masts. WiFi routers are clearly tiny in power output in comparison. However, we are much further away from the TV transmitters and the exposure level will fall quickly with distance, in line with the inverse square law. I would still imagine that the exposure level in your house is greater from the TV/Radio signals than it is from the WiFi router, but does anyone here know by what factor of difference?

peterbaker

The reason I think we should be cautious about Wi-Fi (and related home-use and telecoms technology) is because I fear that it has come upon us like an unseen tsunami. It hasn't really been a gradual roll out of one technology followed by a prolonged period before the next change. in which effects might be noticed.

When I was young we had radio (Long Wave, Medium Wave) and B/W tv at '415 lines'. That persisted for the first 20 years of my life. There was of course Short Wave and VHF for the military and others, and VLF/ELF for the cold war submarine fleet. But as you suggest, the transmitters were usually some distance away.

In about 1970 we got colour telly and '625 lines', and FM/UHF radio, but largely from the same co-located transmitter locations as before.

Then nearly twenty years later we got analogue 'mobile' phones with patchy coverage. We also started using PCs at about the same time.

Gradually the coverage got better, Orange did their different thing with PCN where 'P' stands for 'Pulsed' I believe, and then, with the promise of license auctions GSM was introduced and things started hotting up quickly. The Chancellor took billions from the mobile phone industry, taking so much in fact that some almost collapsed. The quid pro quo was to allow a light touch on regulation so they could get their money back quicker. Data transmission was actually very slow to take off. SMS rather surprisingly got going before data caught on. SMS doesn't require powerful transmitters. Data does. The industry had some inventing to do before they could actually fully bring data transmission to us. And they had to secretly upgrade all their transmitter sites quickly and the actually number of transmitters probably trebled or quadrupled so fast and so imperceptibly that no-one really knows how safe it is to spend time in the vicinity of a collocated TETRA, UMTS and double GSM location anymore. The governments sitefinder site apologises that their public database of transmitters may not be up to date. Why not?

The Stewart Enquiry was set up in response to largely parental concern about mobile phone transmitters seen to be erected near schools and it was a fudge. No one understood the measuring units that were used for the surveys on the school playgrounds and they were comparitively useless. Te only firm conclusion coming out of the Stewart Enquiry was that rying to drive with a mobile in your hand was the most dangerous thing they could think of to report! And look were that got us! Anyway the technology was changing so fast (3G TETRA UMTS) that apart from 'phone-driving' it was all a bit irrelevant anyway. Local authorities started conniving with telecoms companies to skip planning regulations and to actually go as far as secretly erecting transmitters in streetlamps! There are thousands around the country and very few people know they are there!

Somewhere in between we had flash-in-the-pan wireless-local-loop Ionica and Atlantic Telecom telephone systems. Satellite TV started a bit earlier. (Microwave technology to/from our rooftops and anywhere else it penetrated). I had an Ionica telephone system ... great dial up internet too!

Bluetooth has been a feature of most mobile handsets for around 36 months. DECT cordless telephones have been widely available for about the same limited period. DAB radio and Digital Terrestrial TV is also 36 month thing. Bluetooth dongles for PCs were originally not powerful enough. Newer 100metre Bluetooth was generally a built-in feature of a new PC as of about 24 months ago.

WiFi has only been easily affordable for the last 12 months.

... So compared with the steady changes over decades in the first half of my life, see what I mean by tsunami in relation to WiFi related technologies in the last very few years?

Need_More_Money wrote: »

The example I used in another thread was of bananas. Do we know they are perfectly safe to eat (I pointed out that they are radioactive. Same goes for Brazil nuts)?

You just had me choking on a brazil nut NMM! Is that why it says "Extra Special" on the packet?:-) and I bought bananas this evening:-)

I would be interested if anyone knows the relative strengths of electromagnetic radiation that people are typically exposed to from TV and radio transmitters, mobile phone masts, and WiFi routers. I would guess that TV and radio transmitters tranmit with much greater power than Mobile phone masts. WiFi routers are clearly tiny in power output in comparison. However, we are much further away from the TV transmitters and the exposure level will fall quickly with distance, in line with the inverse square law. I would still imagine that the exposure level in your house is greater from the TV/Radio signals than it is from the WiFi router, but does any know know by what factor of difference?

I too think it might be interesting to look at that.

Need_More_Money_2

peterbaker wrote: »

The reason I think we should be cautious about Wi-Fi (and related home-use and telecoms technology) is because I fear that it has come upon us like an unseen tsunami. It hasn't really been a gradual roll out of one technology followed by a prolonged period before the next change. in which effects might be noticed.

But if there is genuinely no reason to believe it is dangerous, should we really stifle development 'just in case'? Would this apply to everything that is developing quickly? Clearly mistakes have been made in the past, the best example perhaps being tobacco. But don't we have to accept some mistakes will be made to allow any progress to be made? Everything we do in life has associated risks and we generally accept them without question. Essentially it boils down to a risk/benefit analysis.

peterbaker wrote: »

Local authorities started coniving with telcoms companies to skip planning regulations and to actually go as far as secretly erecting transmitters in streetlamps! There are thousands around the country and very few people know they are there!

I've heard this before and it always confuses me. People complained that mobile masts were ugly and spoiled the environment. So companies developed ways of hiding them in streetlamps or other signs. They're then accused of being sneaky :rolleyes: . They can't win can they? Aren't they obliged to apply for planning permission so it is in the public domain where the transmitters will be, even if you can't see them?

peterbaker

Need_More_Money wrote: »

But if there is genuinely no reason to believe it is dangerous, should we really stifle development 'just in case'? Would this apply to everything that is developing quickly? ... But don't we have to accept some mistakes will be made to allow any progress to be made? .... Essentially it boils down to a risk/benefit analysis.

There's huge money involved. That means it boils down to politics.

I've heard this before and it always confuses me. People complained that mobile masts were ugly and spoiled the environment. So companies developed ways of hiding them in streetlamps or other signs. They're then accused of being sneaky :rolleyes: . They can't win can they? Aren't they obliged to apply for planning permission so it is in the public domain where the transmitters will be, even if you can't see them?

Nope planning permission was largely sidestepped by special concession, especially for masts of below a certain height (streetlamps).

I had one outside my house for 2 years before I discovered it was there after browsing the public government mast location database http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/ I no longer live there but I see it now has a colocated UMTS transmitter at the same location. I wonder what that looks like?

People did complain yes and there were even a few examples of masts made to look like conifers, but then it became 'convenient' to say nothing and to truly conceal them to conceal proliferation.

wolfman

Interesting addition to the argument:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6583815.stm

espresso

peterbaker wrote: »

Orange did their different thing with PCN where 'P' stands for 'Pulsed' I believe..........

See there you go again, jumping to your own conclusions! The 'P' does not stand for pulsed.

PCN (Personal Communications Network) was marketing term, not a new technology used at the time to differentiate the new UK GSM networks (Orange, T-Mob) which use exactly the same technology but operate at twice the frequency of the first UK GSM networks (O2, Voda).

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

:rolleyes:

peterbaker

espresso wrote: »

See there you go again, jumping to your own conclusions! The 'P' does not stand for pulsed.

PCN (Personal Communications Network) was marketing term, not a new technology used at the time to differentiate the new UK GSM networks (Orange, T-Mob) which use exactly the same technology but operate at twice the frequency of the first UK GSM networks (O2, Voda).

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

:rolleyes:

Sorry about that espresso, I can't know everything:-) I am fallible. I do know a lot about a broad range of subjects, but I don't check every last word I say here or I'd never get around to saying it! I said "...stands for Pulsed, I think". I am not writing a scientific paper here. When I wrote it I thought "shall I check it?", but as you have pointed out, I didn't.

Actually, I think you will find that Orange and later Mercury One-2-One where not identical technologies to GSM at twice the frequency. I recall there WERE concerns about Orange PCN at one point when the majority of mobile users were still using analogue. The GSM/PCN technologies converged later and "PCN" was then largely dropped as a term.

But Orange's PCN did/does use pulsed signals did/does it not? So nothing "dangerous" about my minor false assumption at all, I'd say.

Anything else you want to pick me up and deride me on? Feel free, I've mentioned lots!