5G, the Federal Council's decision that dividesby
Christian Rappaz,
illustre.ch, 19 February 2019 (translation)
By granting licences for the new technology without debating the presumed risks it poses to the population, has the Federal Council yielded to pressure from operators and the economy? Points of view.Watchmakers have reminded us of this these days. The magnetic fields generated by our smartphones disturb mechanical watches and impair their accuracy. According to mobile phone operators and their lobbies, however, these same waves have no influence on the human body. This logic clearly won out in the Federal Council when, on 8 February, it awarded the 5G licences for a period of 15 years for an amount of CHF 380 million to Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt.
For the record, 5G, or fifth generation mobile telephony, is the network that we are promised is super-reactive, super-fast, capable of connecting billions of objects, including autonomous cars. But it is also and above all this network that divides part of the population and the scientific and medical community, some seeing it as a major technological advance, and others as a potential increased risk to our health, that of nature and the planet. According to the latter, the universal deployment of 5G will lead to a significant increase in exposure to radio frequency radiation, in addition to the radiation induced by the 2G, 3G and 4G networks already in place. However, they argue, there is already evidence of the harmful effects of radiofrequency radiation on humans and the environment.