Israel: 4G ''public debate'' and radiation increase data by the Ministry of Environment

Bron: mail Iris Atmon
29 okt. 2013

Zeer uitgebreide informatie over 4G en het overheidsbeleid en maarregelen in Israël.

Since there was interest in the data of 16 fold increase of radiation by the 4G I attach below

most of the Ministry of Environment's document about the 4G radiation data (translation). The Ministry of Education has put WiFi in 1300 schools so far, and AFTER they wrote the new document for schools, that restricts WiFi in kindergardens, it was exposed on a radio interview lately that WiFi is still put in kindergardens by Athena Fund in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. Regarding 4G there was no public debate and there will not be: the justifications document of 3 ministries for 4G were written as the basis for the public debate. They were put on the ministries website, I saw it by total coincidence several days before the deadline to file public responses,

I distributed it to several people and we wrote responses that were ignored, and this was the ''public debate''.

Nothing about public debate was in the newspapers, and no public access was given to these documents.

That's it, and as it was mentioned in last radio interview, a public debate whether this technology is needed will not happen, because it was already decided that it is needed.

From the 4G justification document of the Ministry of Environment:

4 reasons for justification document:

1) executive committee report about the distribution of cellular communication in Israel. In 2005 the government devided, that relevant governmental ministries executive committee would recommend to the government about rules for continued development of the cellular communication in Israel. One of the committee recommendations was to have public debate before moving to 4G, about the benefits and disadvantages of this move.

2) Non ionizing law 2006 determines that it is needed to act according to the precautionary principle about everything related to non ionizing radiation.

The precautionary principle determines that a new mass technology cannot be implemented without a thorough examination of the possible damage regarding the benefits to the public and individual.

3) IARC classification of RF as possibly carcinogenic.

4) According to the position of the legal government advisor filed to the high court, the relevant governmental ministries, health, communication and environment would prepare together justification documents, that would be published for public comments and public debate would be this way.

Prediction of cellular radiation exposure in 2020

From environmental aspect, as in the move from 2nd generation to 3rd generation, several trends are expected:

- increasing use of cellular communication

- increased efficiency of the cellular communication in all that is related to radiation exposure

- the need for more base stations for reception

- decreasing transmission power of each one of the base stations.

Part of the trends are definitely favorable for the environment, like a wider and more equal distribution of base stations with lower transmission power, and part of them are negative, like increasing wireless communication use, something that will bring more radiation exposure despite being more efficient.

Regarding addition of base stations and increasing radiation exposure after moving to 4G, here is an estimation based on the following assumptions:

- In 2020 there will be 10 million subscribers of cellular communication, increase of 5% from 2010.

- in 2020, 20% of the customers will use internet services intensively through the cellular.

In 2010 only 5% will be heavy consumers of data. The assumption is based on the international predictions about the increasing cellular internet use.

In 2020 a cellular customer will talk on average 20 minutes a day, like today.

The assumption is based on the saturation that already exists about everything that is related to speaking through the wireless.

- In 2020 a cellular customer will download data through the mobile phone 20 minutes on daily average, increase of 20 fold than 2010. The assumption is based on the international predictions about the increasing cellular internet use.

- In 2020 the data download speed will be 100 Mb/s, increase of 25 fold vs 2010.

100 MB/s is minimum for 4G and considering that every technology gets mature within a period of time, it is reasonable that in 2020 the average data downloading speed will not reach to 1000 MB/s.

It should be noted that today the average speed is 4MB/s but also in frequencies that are owned today by the companies and the 3G technology, it is possible to reach 10 fold higher speeds.

The 4G transmission method is at least 3 times more efficient. Moving while keeping today's usage data will reduce exposure to radiation 3 fold.

Distribution of more smartphones and wireless computers (including tablets) connected through cellular model to cellular network, will increase the quantity of data that go through the cellular network. Also today, smartphone consumes data like 50 mobile phones 2nd generation, and a wireless computer consumes through the cellular network like 500 mobiles of 2nd generation.

Under the above assumptions, it is expcted that 1000 fold data will be passed by the cellular network, and 300 fold more radiation will be transmitted to the environment. In the relevant frequencies, the recommended threshold by the ministry in populated areas, is 40 -100 uW/cm2. The exposure in more than 90% of these areas is today less than 0.1 uW/cm2, so even increase in radiation in factor 300 is not expected to exceed the standard recommended by the Ministry (that is 10 fold stricter than the WHO recommendations).

It is not realistic or possible that the 4G communication will be provided by macro sites because it will be necessary to add 40,000 more sites in addition to the existing sites, considering that:

Today's macro sites transmit in less than 25% of the installed ability. So there is no need of 300 fold more sites but only 75 fold more.

The 4G's ability to transmit 4 fold power more than the 3G, so there is no need of 75 fold more sites but 19 fold.

In distributing 4G, sharing infrastructure will be a must that every site will serve at least 3 cellular companies, so there is no need for 19 more sites but only 6 fold more.

This situation is not reasonable, and cannot be implemented. The 4G will force a totally different attitude that will enable to provide the service level that is needed efficiently and equally. Therefore, 4G networks will be based on internal dense distribution of femto cells, cellular sites with power of 10-20 milliwatts so that the external sites will be able to transmit lower power in factor 100 vs. the needed if the sites had to provide the reception inside the buildings.

Therefore, the number of macro sites (power above 2 watts), will increase only 30% in order to enable surfing speed of 100 Mb/s and most new sites will be in areas of low density population, where there is today transmission site in every dozens of km.

The maximum power of each antenna will not increase above the maximum power of the external antennas that are installed today, 120 watts.

Most of the cellular communication will be based on hundreds of thousands of femto cells with power of up to 20 milliwatts each.

The femto cell connects between the cellphone and the wired internet system so that in contrast to the situation today, the use of cell phone use inside buildings will be accompanied by much less radiation from the cell phone and much much less radiation emitted by the external site.

The femto cell solution for reducing the load from the external sites and for quick rate of downloading data inside buildings, won much success and today 8 of the 10 leading cellphone companies (leading in revenues) provide this type of solution to their customers.

Using femto cells will also solve the difficulty that exists today in distributing antennas in some places.

The cellular network users will install by themselves femto cells in their home (like installing WiFi doday, a wireless router) or demand the installation from the cellular provider, so the resistance to installing femto cells will be low, if at all.

The transmitting power of femto cell is 10-20 milliwatts, lower than WiFi and so is the exposure to radiation.

The range of femto cell is 10 meters only so that the radiation emitted from it will not affect the neighbors.

The additional exposure to radiation

The main source of exposure is still the mobile phone, when the exposure to external or internal antennas will be at closer distance than today.

The exposure that originates from the mobile equipment, will not increase despite the increased use, what's more, usually the mobile phone will not have to ''tall'' through the walls with an external antennas, but with a close internal antenna.

The exposure that originates from the stationary equipment, the internal and external base stations, will increase only if the communication inside buildings will be based on cellular and not wired communication.

Because of the massive distribution of femto cell sites inside buildings, the external sites will not have to transmit high power that will enable the penetration of the radiation into buildings (in the relevant frequencies every wall reduces the radiation by factor of 10).

Today there is a big gap between areas where the distribution of cellular towers fits the number of cell phone users and therefore exposure to radiation is relatively low, and between areas where there are not enough antennas in relation to the number of users and the characteristic use of cellular technology therefore exposure to radiation is higher.

The 4G will enable equal exposure, so regardless of the location in reation to the transmitting source, or in relation to the main lobes of the antennas, the differences between the high exposures to the low exposures will not be in factor of thousands like today, but of maximum 100.

Recommnedations:

Massive use of wired communication, wired internet through femto cells or the like.

Sharing infrastructure.

The conclusion from all of the above, is that after the full 4G distribution, the exposure that originates from external and internal sites will be much more equal, so that most of the population is expected to be exposed to average radiation of about 5 uW/cm2.

It is noted, that in the relevant frequencies, the WHO's recommended threshold, which is 50 times less than what is known to be harmful is between 400- 1000 uW/cm2, depending on the frequency.

The threshold in Israel is 10 times stricter, as it was determined in permissions given by the power of the non ionizing law 2006, and as published on the Ministry's website.

This exposure is lower than the relatively high exposures recorded today in populated areas, with too few antennas, but a little higher, up to 16 times, than the exposure in areas where the number of antennas suits the demands.

The exposure from cell phone use will reduce significantly, also because of shared use by the cell phone companies in external sites, but mainly because of the good coverage inside buildings.

This conclusion is based on the implementation of recommendations, so the recommendations should be included in the 4G licenses.



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