It's ionizing radiation that is dangerous because it can break chemical bonds." "All light is radiation because it is simply energy moving through space. "There's often confusion between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation because the term radiation is used for both," said Kenneth Foster, a professor of bioengineering at Pennsylvania State University. Many of these concerns are over 5G's use of the higher energy millimeter-wave radiation, which experts say is no cause for worry. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Is 5G dangerous?Īlthough 5G may improve our day to day lives, some consumers have voiced concern about potential health hazards. "Millimeter-wave and massive MIMO are the two biggest technologies 5G will use to deliver the higher data rates and lower latency we expect to see."Īlthough 5G will require more base stations, they'll be much smaller and require less power than traditional cell towers. At the Columbia high-Speed and Millimeter-wave IC (COSMIC) lab, Krishnaswamy and his team designed chips that enable both millimeter wave and MIMO technologies. "With a massive amount of antennas - tens to hundreds of antennas at each base station - you can serve many different users at the same, increasing the data rate," Krishnaswamy said. MIMO stands for multiple-input multiple-output, and refers to a configuration that takes advantage of the smaller antennas needed for millimeter waves by dramatically increasing the number of antenna ports in each base station. The miniaturization of base stations also enables another technological breakthrough for 5G: Massive MIMO. They can be placed atop buildings and light poles. Fortunately, these stations are much smaller and require less power than traditional cell towers. The higher frequency of millimeter waves may create new lanes on the communication highway, but there's one problem: Millimeter waves are easily absorbed by foliage and buildings and will require many closely spaced base stations, called small cells. They're called millimeter because their wavelengths vary between 1 and 10 millimeters, where as radio waves are on the order of centimeters. Millimeter waves use frequencies from 30 to 300 gigahertz, which are 10 to 100 times higher than the radio waves used today for 4G and WiFi networks.
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