Cell Phones, Cell Towers and Human Safety

Are cell phones and cell towers “safe?” Yes, but It is a question that seems to recur. The issue is non-ionizing radiation, electromagnetic energy in the radio regions used by AM and FM radio, TV broadcasts, generated around power lines, Wi-Fi, cable TV, which uses radio waves in the copper portions of plant, and cell phones.

Non-ionizing radiation differs from ionizing radiation in the way it acts on materials like air, water, and living tissue, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“Unlike x-rays and other forms of ionizing radiation, non-ionizing radiation does not have enough energy to remove electrons from atoms and molecules,” CDC says. Non-ionizing radiation can heat substances, as does a microwave oven.

The issue is whether the levels of non-ionizing radiation people encounter using communication devices (TVs, phones, radios) is a cause for concern.

source: Wikipedia

The answer is rather simple: “To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use,” says the World Health Organization. That might be worth reiterating, in light of concern in some quarters about whether 5G is “safe.” Keep in mind that power levels for cell phones and even cell towers are low.

Consider that a cell tower radio emits energy 100 to 5,000 times lower than a TV transmitter, for example. Some liken the power level to that of a light bulb.

Still, if you really are concerned about the possible health effects of using mobile phones, use them less. Text instead of holding the phone against your head and talking.

Radio signals weaken (attenuate) logarithmically, by powers of 10, so the power levels decay quite rapidly.

Basically, doubling the distance of a receiver from a transmitter means that the strength of the signal at that new location is 50 percent  of its previous value. Just three meters from the antenna, a cell tower radio’s power density has dropped by an order of magnitude (10 times).

At 10 meters--perhaps to the base of the tower, power density is down two orders of magnitude. At 500 meters, a distance a human is using the signals, power density has dropped six orders of magnitude.

source: Professor Girish Kumar

Using the internet on a smartphone, for example, puts the device a much-safer distance away from one’s head, in case your worry is possible health effects to the brain, as the phone is both a transmitter and a receiver.

Keep in mind that the phone is a low-energy transmitter. So power levels drop sharply with distance, even the distance of your arm, as is the case even for cell tower radios.

Workers who climb cell towers, radio or TV transmission towers do have to take precautions against the high power levels emitted by such radios, as do other workers in close proximity  to transmitters.

Physical objects also affect signal decay. Even for the low and middle-frequency radio signals used by cell phones, an office wall can reduce signals by 75 percent. A concrete wall can reduce signals by 94 percent. So physical barriers matter.

To be sure, it might always be difficult, if not impossible, to determine long-term effects, as the sources of low level non-ionizing radiation occur naturally, from the sun, as well as from use of consumer devices. There simply is no way to conduct controlled experiments.

It might be good advice to recall that all technology use carries some risk, and that there always are ways to reduce risk, to obtain benefits.

80% of Results from 20% of Actions: Happens all the Time

It really is surprising how often a Pareto distribution--the “80/20 rule--appears in business life, or in life, generally. Basically, the theorem states that 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of the actions.

As one example, 80 percent of sales come from 20 percent of clients, or 80 percent of wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people.

source: Steemit

Pareto distributions seem to occur widely in the natural world.

In customer service — 80 percent of your problems are going to come from 20 percent of your customers, and 80 percent of your profits are going to come from 20 percent of your customers

In management — 80 percent of your value is going to be created by 20 percent of your employees, and 80 percent of your problems are going to come from 20 percent of your employees (not necessarily the same 20 percent

In computer science — fixing 20 percent of your most common bugs will fix 80 percent of your errors and crashes

In mobile gaming — 80 percent of your in-game purchases are going to be made by 20 percent of your users

In website management — 80 percent of your traffic is going to come during 20 percent of your uptime,
and 80 percent of your traffic will route to 20 percent of your page

In construction — 80 percent of your injuries are going to come from 20 percent of your hazards

In sports — 80 percent of your wins are going to come from 20 percent of your competitors
or teams

In weight loss and muscle gain, 80 percent of your results are going to come from 20 percent of
your exercises

In user experience — 20 percent of the features of your product or service will be used by users
80 percent of the time

This analysis of the economics of automated vehicles for taxi service, versus conventional driven vehicles, also illustrates the Pareto distribution. Well over 80 percent of the impact comes from less than 20 percent of the vehicles in the fleet.

source: Ashley Nunes, Kristen Hernandez

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The 80/20 Rule (Pareto Distribution) is Found Everywhere in Business

U.S. Fixed Network Internet Access Business Reaching Equilibrium?

The U.S. fixed network internet access business seems to be reaching an equilibrium state, as telco share losses are slowing dramatically.

At the end of the first quarter of  2019, cable TV operators had a 66 percent market share; telcos 34 percent. At the end of the first quarter of 2017, cable share was 63 percent; telco share 37 percent.

Significantly, most of the losses have been at CenturyLink, Frontier and Windstream, not AT&T and Verizon, which have in recent years held their own, not gaining much share but, importantly, not losing share, either.

But losses at CenturyLink, Frontier and Windstream have moderated.

Broadband Providers	Subscribers at end of 1Q 2019	Net Adds in 1Q 2019
Cable Companies
Comcast	27,597,000	375,000
Charter	25,687,000	428,000
Cox*	5,100,000	40,000
Altice	4,155,000	36,900
Mediacom	1,288,000	24,000
WOW (WideOpenWest)	765,900	6,300
Cable ONE	678,385	15,311
Total Top Cable	65,271,285	925,511
Phone Companies
AT&T	15,737,000	36,000
Verizon	6,973,000	12,000
CenturyLink^	4,806,000	(6,000)
Frontier	3,697,000	(38,000)
Windstream	1,032,400	11,400
Consolidated	780,720	1,750
Cincinnati Bell^^	426,700	1,100
Total Top Telco	33,452,820	18,250
Total Top Broadband	98,724,105	943,761

source: Leichtman Research

So the big issue now is whether 5G, mobile or fixed, will disrupt the market equilibrium. And, if so, when that could happen.

“I do think, three to five years out, there is a crossover point where 5G passses home broadband, and 5G has better performance than fiber,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO, has said.

Some will remain skeptical, but Stephenson believes AT&T will have a truly nationwide “fiber speed” network, using either 5G or fiber, across the entire United States.

That would be historically unprecedented. The old monopoly AT&T had a nearly-ubiquitous copper network. But in the post-divestiture market, no tier-one service provider has been able to sell broadband to “nearly every U.S. household” at speeds representing optical fiber performance.

With AT&T, Verizon and also T-Mobile US all planning 5G fixed wireless efforts, the potential for disruption exists. It already appears that some optimistic forecasts of cable TV market share already are falling short. The telco erosion is not completely over. But equilibrium is approaching. Fixed wireless could be quite destabilizing, in that regard.

How Much Value from Analytics, in Telecom?

Connectivity providers overestimate the value of analytics for revenue growth and underestimate its value for optimizing operations, says Axiata Analytics Centre head Pedro Uria-Recio.

Beyond that, the upside from analytics might be quite a bit lower in the connectivity business than in other industries, according to an analysis by McKinsey consultants.

Value might be quite high in retail, travel or logistics. But value seems relatively low in the telecom industry, compared to most others.

source: McKinsey

That is not to say many “digital transformation” efforts in the connectivity business are pointless. But there also is a value for money aspect, as well as opportunity costs. How big will the return be, in measurable terms (revenue, profit)? And what else might have been done with the invested capital?

One potential example: experts have always told me there are hundreds of indicators a consumer account is about to churn. That might lead you to ask why firms do not do something with such indicators, before a customer leaves.

Perhaps the answer is that they cannot actually do very much. Maybe the customer leaves for some relatively-structural reason (poor coverage, low mobile data speeds), perceived value (some other cheaper alternative is acceptable), or there is some change in life state (family member dies) driving the account change.

How FirstNet is Boosting 4G Speeds Nationwide

AT&T has not shied away from touting the importance of its FirstNet emergency responder program, and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson reiterated its importance at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference.

The company began building FirstNet in 2016, which meant the company had technicians “climbing every cell tower” in the United States. So the opportunity then became “if you have to climb those towers anyhow, what else can you do?”

One important opportunity is to install the hardware infrastructure for 5G, so that only a software upgrade is necessary to turn on a standards-based 5G network. Stephenson estimated the full network would be ready to turn on “next year, about this time (May).

Also, upgrades made as part of that effort now mean AT&T “capacity is up over 50 percent in three years,” giving AT&T the “fastest network in the United States, now.”

What could happen in three to five years is perhaps more profound. “I do think, three to five years out, there is a crossover point where 5G passses home broadband, and 5G has better performance than fiber,” Stephenson said. Some will remain skeptical, but Stephenson believes AT&T will have a truly nationwide “fiber speed” network, using either 5G or fiber, across the entire United States.

That would be historically unprecedented. The old monopoly AT&T had a nearly-ubiquitous copper network. But in the post-divestiture market, no tier-one service provider has been able to sell broadband to “nearly every U.S. household” at speeds representing optical fiber performance.

If one sets fiber-to-home performance at about 1 Gbps, that claim implies 5G network performance faster than 1 Gbps. And even if one assumes a typical performance is less than that, speeds of hundreds of gigabits per second, nationwide (at least serving 200-plus million potential customers) coverage at such speeds would be unprecedented.

Without Millimeter Wave, the Mobile Business Model Breaks

Some technology innovations are important because they either keep an existing business model from breaking, or threaten to break business models. Low earth orbit satellite constellations, in principle, represent new competition to virtually every internet service provider on the planet.

Cable modems and hybrid fiber coax have been a major means for breaking the bandwidth limitations of digital subscriber line, as advanced forms of DSL in turn extend the usefulness of copper access.

Small cell architectures have been the primary way mobile operators have intensified their use of available spectrum.

Likewise, millimeter wave spectrum might help mobile operator business models from breaking (for lack of sufficient capacity to support mobile internet access).

Verizon has faced criticism in some quarters related to the performance of its millimeter wave fixed wireless service, which remains in early commercialization. The general tenor of the critique is that signal propagation is not good enough, and take rates too low, to support the business model.

We also sometimes forget that the state of the art for fiber to the home was 10 Mbps, and that deployment costs were double what they are today.

The conclusion some seem to reach is that millimeter wave is not useful for 5G. That flies in the face of global movement to commercialize millimeter wave spectrum for 5G and all following mobile network generations. At WRC 2019, the International Telecommunications Union is looking at a wide range of millimeter wave spectrum.

In the following illustration, the width of the blue bars roughly illustrates the amount of capacity at different frequencies. The horizontal axis represents the frequency spectrum from approximately 1 GHz to 90 GHz on a relative scale (mobile services tend to use frequencies at 600 MHz to 800 MHz at the low end).

The orange bars show the approximately 11 GHz (capacity, not frequency)  of new spectrum released by the FCC for both licensed and unlicensed use. Note that the total amount of new bandwidth is orders of magnitude more than all bandwidth presently available for mobile purposes.

Europe and Asia are working towards commercialization of much of that spectrum as well.The EU recently authorized 26 GHz for 5G, for example. 

The red and green blocks show frequency allocations for the aerospace, defense and satellite communications industries, parts of which might ultimately be available using shared spectrum mechanisms.

source: Anokiwave

The point is that there will be growing pains as millimeter wave technology--never used commercially before--is deployed. But there also can be little doubt that in addition to small cell architectures, there is little additional spectrum available to accommodate growing mobile data use, except in the millimeter wave regions.

And that is why the strategic direction (use millimeter wave and small cells) Verizon is taking is correct, absolutely correct. Starting with 5G, and continuing forward, ability to support ever-higher data demand will hinge on use of millimeter wave resources.

source: Accton

Bands under consideration for mobile service on a primary basis include 24.25-27.5 GHz, 37-40.5 GHz, 42.5-43.5 GHz, 45.5-47 GHz, 47.2-50.2 GHz, 50.4-52.6 GHz, 66-76 GHz 81-86 GHz.

Bands under consideration that may require additional allocations for mobile service on a primary basis include 31.8-33.4 GHz, 40.5-42.5 GHz, 47-47.2 GHz.  

As with any major new platform, and especially for deployment of spectrum resources that in the analog era simply could not be used at all, millimeter wave platforms will go through an experience curve (learning curve). By moving early, Verizon might well get ahead of others on that experience curve. AT&T is on the same curve as well.

That is not to say other alternatives, in an ideal world, might not have been preferable. Verizon and others might well prefer mid-band solutions that are coming, but not available today.

Since capacity and coverage always are inversely related, mid-band is a blend of coverage and capacity, where low-band is better for coverage, but lacking in terms of capacity. Millimeter wave frequencies are best for capacity, worst for coverage.

Though we might prefer not to have to rely on millimeter wave assets, ultimately we have no choice. Capacity is an obvious and growing need, and there is little low-band or mid-band spectrum left to use for that purpose, absent a major reconfiguration of usage rights.

Spectrum clearing is both expensive and time consuming. And we might not have either time or sufficient capital for such major spectrum clearing.

Also, we are 10 years away from 6G, in any case, as we launch the next-generation mobile network about every decade. Millimeter wave involves no significant spectrum clearing hurdles.