Some Oklahoman’s Now Pushing Back On 5G Upgrades

As new 5G cellular towers go up, some Oklahoma residents are taking providers to task, protesting the placement of these towers so close to their neighborhoods. As the two sides argue potential results, the facts get lost in a puddle of muddy opinions.

While the burgeoning 5G service is new to Oklahoma, it's not really new at all. It started years ago when cellular companies' first attempt at 5G was almost instantly smashed by regulators for not being fast enough... The new tech was a boost in speed over the aging 4G network, but not enough to warrant a new designation. It became what we know as 4Glte.

By the time providers finally settled on a fast and true 5G network frequency backed by the technology to make it reliable, it came with some news that even more towers would have to be erected to support the service load to every cell phone in each area.

Crash course in telecommunications: Everything that is wireless operates by radio waves. From the original wireless telegraph of 1872 to the BlueTooth connection your Firestick remote uses to control your entertainment, it's all radio waves... but as technology gets better and faster, the area of service grows smaller and smaller.

The simple quick science is this... The lower the radio frequency the slower it is, but slower also means further. That's how AM radio stations can broadcast coast to coast whereas FM radio stations have a much faster frequency. While that provides way better audio quality, that signal also degrades much faster as it travels. It's like bouncing a ball. If you let it go, it'll bounce smaller and smaller until it becomes static.

The faster the cell service gets, the more towers they'll have to build.

Many Oklahoma residents in an area currently getting their 5G upgrade are starting to push back. They don't want to see them so close to neighborhoods. They're afraid of what it will do for property values. Does 5G really spread coronavirus? Will it microwave the moisture in the human body? Is there a cancer risk? Will this give Bill Gates ownership of their DNA? These are the questions the group of residents wants answered.

While the confirmed and peer-reviewed science says certain levels of radiofrequency radiation can be harmful to the body, it takes an extraordinary amount to be harmful.

So far the protests are small and limited, but if they manage to strike a chord with the populace, it could be a long time before we all finally get cellular web service fast enough to compete with the cable company.