City of Madison
The city of Madison’s website illustrates how a freestanding small cell tower could look in a residential neighborhood, with minimum setbacks from trees and driveways.
The next wave of cell phone technology — 5G or fifth generation — will provide speeds geometrically faster than the existing 4G and LTE networks most of us now use. The race to install the infrastructure for it is on, and Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Energy Council, says Wisconsin cannot afford to fall behind.
Still says 5G would pave the way for “all kinds of sensor-equipped consumer products and infrastructure. The whole notion of smart cities really rests on those cities having 5G.”
In a region where 12 percent of employees are in the healthcare sector, it’s impossible to ignore how integral it appears 5G will be to the future of that industry. Having 5G will draw new businesses to the state, and benefit the ones that are already here, Still says.
“Healthcare… [is] one of the bigger sectors in terms of why 5G is important,” Still says. He says telemedicine, which is the remote monitoring of patients, “is really important and starting to drive medicine today.”
But Bridget Birdsall, a resident of Madison’s Dunn Marsh neighborhood, wonders what cost this new technology will come at. Birdsall is among a growing number of people who are worried about the possible health effects from the electromagnetic radiation related to these cell networks.
“To be responsible, we have to make sure it’s safe,” says Birdsall. “Safety trumps economics.”
Now used primarily by the government and the military, the 5G network is fundamentally different from any that has come before it. Transmitting at a higher frequency allows the signals to carry more data at higher speeds. But unlike traditional cell signals, 5G signals cannot travel as far and are usually unable to penetrate obstacles. That means everything from walls to trees can affect the signal.
It is considered line-of-sight technology, so any facility or home hoping to use the 5G network would need to be in view of a base station emitting the signal. In order to handle a nationwide 5G rollout, a massive number of new cell sites will need to be installed in the United State by 2025. To be effective, 5G uses what are known as small cell towers set every few hundred feet. That would put them in neighborhoods, outside homes and, with several cell companies competing for business, could mean several small cell towers per block.
The city of Madison is “getting ready for 5G implementation,” according to a web page (“small cell infrastructure” ) devoted to the technology. It notes that the city is “developing guidelines” that would allow cellular companies to locate small cell installations “in a way that maximizes technological benefits, while attempting to preserve street-side aesthetics.”
The page has a small section on health concerns that references the Federal Communications Commission’s adoption of the National Council on Radiation Protection’s recommended limits of human exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields. It notes that “long-term research on small cell radio frequency exposure is currently underway by outside agencies and organizations.”
Birdsall says that gives her pause about the new technology. “In the ideal world, we would do some checking before we do it,” she says. “I just don’t know enough and I think that’s the problem. We just don’t know enough. We need to know more.”
The 5G rollout comes without any pre-market safety testing. Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in a 2013 paper that while there is no current proof that cell phone radiation is harmful to humans, the FCC also does not have definitive proof that current federal standards guarantee that cell phones are safe. Moskowitz is not the only scientist with these concerns. In 2017, 180 scientists and doctors from 35 countries signed a petition calling for a moratorium “until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry.”
Dr. Cindy Russell, executive director of Physicians for Safe Technology, says that 4G and 5G technology will likely overlap for years before 5G takes over. That means there will need to be towers for both networks. How those two networks move, interact and affect the body at a biological and cellular level concerns Russell.
“The industry, I think, is very powerful, and they have been able to side-step the issue of safety by not reevaluating the safety standards,” says Russell.
Russell worries about a lack of oversight and the industry’s dismissal of studies. The Physicians for Safe Technology website, as well as BioInitiative.org, link to a number of health studies that Russell cites to show that current guidelines for electromagnetic radiation are inadequate. She hopes the implementation of 5G can be slowed down.
She notes that public officials are declining to consider health impacts of 5G technology, the way they would for toxins released in the air or water. “I am appalled that you are not able to even look at biological effects in relation to cell towers,” she says. “How can you dismiss public health concerns when we have an abundance of it?”
The advent and spread of new technology far outpaces science’s ability to keep up with and study it. Studies take time, are often under-funded and can’t match the pace of technological growth. Russell is frustrated that regulations are not keeping pace with the industry or the concerns being raised.
“I believe it’s a health crisis in the making,” she says. “We want to use technology, I want to have cell phone towers, I just want them to be safe. I want it to be studied, I want people to be thoughtful and careful. That is our mission — to have safe technology that doesn’t harm people or the environment.... Let’s actually do the science instead of people being treated as guinea pigs.”
Birdsall, who lost both parents to illnesses she ties to their cigarette smoking, notes that it took decades before the consequences of smoking were well known. “If you move something too fast, you’re way more likely to make mistakes,” she says. “It needs to be vetted.”
Regardless of whether small cell infrastructure poses a risk to human health, Madison officials don’t have the power to keep it out of the city. Hannah Mohelnitzky, spokesperson for the city’s engineering division, says state and federal regulations prohibit municipalities from blocking the technology.
“There really isn’t much we can do,” she says. “Under the FCC orders, no local regulation may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide telecommunications service.”
Wisconsin For Safe Technology is part of a national coalition of 100 organizations that formed specifically to draw attention to concerns about 5G. Though the FCC has made 5G rollout a federal matter, some local governments are fighting for control. In April, the California Supreme Court ruled that cities can reject 5G equipment over aesthetics. That precedent may give opponents a chance to slow expansion and change regulations.
In July, Gov. Tony Evers signed Wisconsin Act 14 into law, to provide a “regulatory framework” for 5G technology that would “pave the way for the next generation of connectivity across our state.”
On Aug. 1, Madison established guidelines and a permitting process for companies that want to install small cell towers in public rights-of-way and public property. These guidelines include height restrictions, allowable materials and where they can be located in relation to other buildings.
No towers have been installed since the new regulations went into effect, although Mohelnitzky believes there are a few that have been proposed. She expects that many permit applications will eventually be submitted.
“Mobile data traffic is growing continually,” she notes. “As that grows significantly, the need for more small cell facilities probably will grow.”
