CTIA Archives - EMFSA

Airlines warn of ‘major disruptions’ from 5G in C-band

Editor — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 09:39:49 +0000

Source: https://www.lightreading.com/5g/airlines-warn-of-major-disruptions-from-5g-in-c-band/d/d-id/771518

News Analysis MIKE DANO, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies

8/17/2021

Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile collectively spent almost $100 billion on C-band spectrum licenses for 5G earlier this year. Now, just a few months before that spectrum is scheduled to be put to use commercially, a large group of major aerospace and airline companies is warning the FCC that 5G operations in that spectrum band could have disastrous effects on the nation’s air travel.

“Major disruptions to passenger air travel, commercial transport and critical helicopter operations can be expected from the rollout of 5G under the commission’s order,” the group wrote to the FCC.

The group’s basic concern centers on how 5G operations in C-band spectrum could affect radio altimeters in aircraft. The wireless industry has generally rejected such interference concerns.

Interfering altitude

Nonetheless, the development casts a cloud over the hopes of AT&T and Verizon to supercharge their 5G aspirations with spectrum that would undoubtedly improve their services. While Verizon and AT&T today offer 5G services that generally aren’t much faster than 4G, midband C-band spectrum promises to support much speedier connections across wide swaths of the country. Already T-Mobile is using similar midband spectrum – in the 2.5GHz band, just below the 3.7GHz C-band – to offer 5G download speeds around 350 Mbit/s.

That’s likely why the FCC’s C-band spectrum auction raised a record $81 billion in total bids – a figure that doesn’t include billions of additional dollars operators are spending to free the spectrum quickly and to install C-band transmission radios around the country.

However, at least a portion of all that spending could be threatened by the aerospace and airline industry, which is warning that 5G transmissions in C-band spectrum could interfere with radio altimeters used in everything from helicopters to commercial aircraft.

“Such harmful interference could lead to an escalation of negative outcomes, from missed approaches, delays, diversions and flight cancellations, to the shutting down of runways on an indefinite basis,” wrote a large number of airline and aerospace trade associations and companies including Aerospace Industries Association, Airlines for America, American Airlines, The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation, among others. In meetings with FCC officials, the group also “discussed the critical role of accurate radar altitude during escape maneuvers that can be required by large commercial air transport and other aircraft during wind shear events and that occur near the ground. Loss of, or incorrect, radar altitude due to flexible use interference would greatly reduce chances of a successful safe outcome.”

Radio altimeters help measure the altitude of an object and are common in aircraft of all types.

Dismissing the concerns

In previous filings to the FCC on the topic, the wireless industry has generally rejected such interference concerns. “The commission correctly determined that C-band 5G can operate without causing interference, let alone harmful interference, to neighboring services in nearby bands,” the CTIA, the main trade group representing AT&T, Verizon and other major wireless companies, wrote in an April filing to the FCC. “The commission should dismiss the aviation industry’s unsupported claims.”

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Government and industry combine to downplay the science on cell phone danger

Editor — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 21:50:43 +0000

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Government-and-industry-combine-to-downplay-the-15421230.php

By Mark Leno and Ellie Marks July 21, 2020

In 2015, the city of Berkeley passed an ordinance requiring cell phone retailers to advise consumers, in a flyer at the point of sale, that keeping a cell phone in their pocket or near their body could expose them to wireless radiation above Federal Communications Commission safety levels. Councilmembers understood that manufacturers deceptively hide this federally mandated information deep within user manuals or in the phone that few ever see. The council also understood that cell phones are allowed to be tested for compliance away from the body— not as used.

A survey of Berkeley residents found overwhelming support for Berkeley’s ordinance. Eight-five percent of residents never saw recommendations from manufacturers about how to best protect against overexposure to cell phone radiation and 82% want this information at the point of sale.

America’s trade association representing the wireless communications industry (CTIA) challenged this ordinance all the way to the United States Supreme Court twice and lost every step of the way. Now this well-funded industry, along with support from the FCC, is again fighting to prevent the public from simple truthful information. Despite losing, the industry has now asked a federal court in California to rehear the case. Industry is repeating its failed argument that the FCC claims cell phones are safe no matter how used. A federal district court hearing is set in San Francisco for Thursday, July 23, on this motion.

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Berkeley’s “Cell Phone Right to Know” Law Survives Supreme Court Challenge

Editor — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 14:54:54 +0000

Electromagnetic Radiation Safety https://www.saferemr.com/2019/12/

December 9, 2019

In a major victory for consumer rights and public health, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a free speech challenge filed by the CTIA–The Wireless Association against the City of Berkeley‘s”cell phone right to know law.”

Thus, the ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the law is constitutional enables the city to continue to enforce its ordinance which requires cell phone retailers to notify prospective customers about cell phone manufacturers’ safety guidelines to ensure consumer safety (see July 1, 2019 below). The ordinance was adopted by a unanimous vote of the city council in May, 2015.

In refusing to review the case, the Supreme Court ignored the pleas of six pro-business organizations that submitted amicus briefs in support of the CTIA’s position.

For details about the law and a chronology of the court case see .

Following is news media coverage on the Supreme Court ruling. For links to all media coverage see .

Berkeley’s cell-phone health warning survives Supreme Court challenge

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-s-cell-phone-health-warning-survives-14893869.php

Justices Won’t Review Berkeley Cellphone Radiation Warning

https://www.law360.com/articles/1226412/justices-won-t-review-berkeley-cellphone-radiation-warning

U.S. Supreme Court rejects challenge to Berkeley cell phone law

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-mobilephone/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-challenge-to-berkeley-cell-phone-law-idUSKBN1YD1K8

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How Big Wireless Made us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe: A Special Investigation

Editor — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 22:35:00 +0000

The disinformation campaign—and massive radiation increase—behind the 5G rollout.

By Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie

https://www.thenation.com/article/how-big-wireless-made-us-think-that-cell-phones-are-safe-a-special-investigation/

Introduction:

Things didn’t end well between George Carlo and Tom Wheeler; the last time the two met face-to-face, Wheeler had security guards escort Carlo off the premises. As president of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), Wheeler was the wireless industry’s point man in Washington. Carlo was the scientist handpicked by Wheeler to defuse a public-relations crisis that threatened to strangle his infant industry in its crib. This was back in 1993, when there were only six cell-phone subscriptions for every 100 adults in the United States. But industry executives were looking forward to a booming future.

Remarkably, cell phones had been allowed onto the US consumer market a decade earlier without any government safety testing. Now, some customers and industry workers were being diagnosed with cancer. In January 1993, David Reynard sued the NEC America Company, claiming that his wife’s NEC phone caused her lethal brain tumor. After Reynard appeared on national TV, the story went viral. A congressional subcommittee announced an investigation; investors began dumping their cell-phone stocks; and Wheeler and the CTIA swung into action.

A week later, Wheeler announced that his industry would pay for a comprehensive research program. Cell phones were already safe, Wheeler told reporters; the new research would simply “re-validate the findings of the existing studies.”………..

Excerpts:

This article does not argue that cell phones and other wireless technologies are necessarily dangerous; that is a matter for scientists to decide. Rather, the focus here is on the global industry behind cell phones—and the industry’s long campaign to make people believe that cell phones are safe.

As happened earlier with Big Tobacco and Big Oil, the wireless industry’s own scientists privately warned about the risks.

Billions of cell-phone users have been subjected to a public-health experiment without informed consent.

The Internet of Things will require augmenting today’s 4G technology with 5G, thus “massively increasing” the general population’s exposure to radiation, according to a petition signed by 236 scientists worldwide who have published more than 2,000 peer-reviewed studies and represent “a significant portion of the credentialed scientists in the radiation research field,” according to Joel Moskowitz, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, who helped circulate the petition. Nevertheless, like cell phones, 5G technology is on the verge of being introduced without pre-market safety testing.

Lack of definitive proof that a technology is harmful does not mean the technology is safe, yet the wireless industry has succeeded in selling this logical fallacy to the world. In truth, the safety of wireless technology has been an unsettled question since the industry’s earliest days. The upshot is that, over the past 30 years, billions of people around the world have been subjected to a massive public-health experiment: Use a cell phone today, find out later if it causes cancer or genetic damage. Meanwhile, the wireless industry has obstructed a full and fair understanding of the current science, aided by government agencies that have prioritized commercial interests over human health and news organizations that have failed to inform the public about what the scientific community really thinks. In other words, this public-health experiment has been conducted without the informed consent of its subjects, even as the industry keeps its thumb on the scale.

Please see the full article at the link: https://www.thenation.com/article/how-big-wireless-made-us-think-that-cell-phones-are-safe-a-special-investigation/

Amy Goodman interviews Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation’s environment correspondent and investigative editor: How Big Wireless War-Gamed the Science on Risks, While Making Customers Addicted to Their Phones https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/5/how_big_wireless_war_gamed_the

Cell Phones and Cancer: Not Just a Conspiracy Theory?

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BREAKING NEWS by Susan Foster on Conflict of Interest in the Berkeley’s “right to know”

Editor — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 10:11:09 +0000

WILL A JUDGE’S FAILURE TO RECUSE

SILENCE BERKELEY’S “RIGHT TO KNOW”?

The long battle over cell phone consumer labels, with a hidden twist of legal super heroes and questions about a Ninth Circuit Court judge’s failure to recuse herself.

A battle over free speech in Berkeley, California has pitted the city of Berkeley against the mighty telecommunications trade group, CTIA – The Wireless Association. Berkeley stands on the First Amendment argument they have a right to inform consumers of certain precautions the FCC already requires in the back of cell phone user’s manuals.

A verdict is expected shortly from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and proponents of Berkeley’s Right to Know consumer notices are growing increasingly concerned about Judge Michelle T. Friedland’s circuitous connection to the CTIA. Supporters of the Right to Know ordinance worry the judge’s husband, Dan Kelly, has links to four members of the CTIA that could jeopardize Berkeley’s fight for the right to speak freely.

Berkeley’s City Council has fought for six years for the right to inform consumers in Berkeley about cell phone usage safety information. Until Berkeley’s unanimous passage of the Right to Know ordinance on May 12, 2015, this information about keeping distance between the cell phone and the body had been hidden in small print in owner’s manuals, or deep within the phone.

The passage of this consumer notice in easy to understand language triggered a forceful response from the CTIA which has threatened legal action against every city and state over the past seven years that has attempted to pass similar right to know legislation.

In the CTIA’s corner is former solicitor general Theodore Olson, the man widely credited with helping George W. Bush win the White House. See link for more: BREAKING NEWS by Susan Foster on Conflict of Interest in the Berkeley’s “right to know”

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