Saturday, February 09, 2019

AT&T lays 5G groundwork in 117 additional U.S. markets

Image Credit: AT&T
Despite some initial attempts to downplay AT&T’s launch of “5G Evolution” services as marketing puffery, upgrades to existing 4G network hardware are a necessary prerequisite before 5G services can launch. To that end, the carrier announced today that it has upgraded parts of 117 additional markets with 5G Evolution services, bringing the total number up to 141. The announcement comes ahead of AT&T’s promised launch of a true mobile 5G network in 12 markets later this year.
AT&T’s 5G Evolution plan calls for 5G-readiness network upgrades to take place in over 500 markets by the end of this year, including every major city throughout the United States, and many smaller ones, as well. Once 5G Evolution goes live in a city, customers with certain recent 4G/LTE handsets can immediately see performance benefits that bring their devices closer to 5G speeds.
As of now, supported 5G Evolution devices include Samsung’s Galaxy S8, S8+, S8 Active, S9, S9+, and Note8; LG’s V30; and the Moto Z2 Force Edition. AT&T promises theoretical peak speeds of up to 400Mbps, which is twice as fast as current standard LTE, though around one-third to one-fifth the base speeds expected from initial 5G networks. The enhanced LTE will serve as a higher-speed backbone as 5G rolls out on a market-by-market basis in 2018 and 2019.
AT&T 5G Evolution services are now live in parts of the following markets:
AlabamaAnniston and Tuscaloosa
AlaskaAnchorage
ArkansasCleburne, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Garland, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff
California: Alpine, Chico, El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Modesto, Mono, Oxnard-Ventura, Sacramento, Salinas-Seaside-Monterey, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa-Petaluma, Sierra, Stockton, Tehama, Vallejo-Fairfield-Napa, Visalia-Tulare-Porterville, and Yuba City
ConnecticutBridgeport and Hartford
FloridaCollier, Fort Pierce, Hardee, Melbourne, Miami, Orlando, Pensacola, Putnam, Sarasota, and West Palm Beach
GeorgiaAtlanta, Chattooga, and Dawson
HawaiiHawaii
IllinoisAurora, Chicago, and Joliet
IndianaAnderson, Bloomington, Evansville, Indianapolis, Kokomo, Miami, Muncie, Terre Haute, and Warren
KansasBrown, Lawrence, Trego, and Wichita
KentuckyLexington, Louisville, Madison, Mason, Trimble, and Union
LouisianaAlexandria, Baton Rouge, Beauregard, Claiborne, De Soto, Houma, Iberville, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Monroe, New Orleans, St. James, Plaquemines, and West Feliciana
MassachusettsBoston
MinnesotaMinneapolis
MississippiBenton, Claiborne, Leake, and Jackson
MissouriSt. Joseph
NevadaReno and Storey
OhioColumbus
OklahomaLawton, Oklahoma City, Seminole, and Tulsa
PennsylvaniaPittsburgh
Puerto RicoAdjuntas, Aguadilla, Culebra, and San Juan-Caguas
South CarolinaColumbia and Greenville
TennesseeHamblen, Knoxville, Maury, Memphis, and Nashville
TexasAbilene, Amarillo, Atascosa, Beaumont, Brownsville-Harlingen, Burleson, Chambers, Cherokee, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Edwards, El Paso, Galveston, Houston, Killeen, Laredo, Longview-Marshall, Lubbock, Mcallen-Edinburg-Mission, Midland, Newton, Odessa, Reeves, San Antonio, Sherman-Dension, Tyler, Victoria, Waco, and Wilson
AT&T is also trialing LTE-LAA, which leverages unlicensed spectrum to boost speeds to up to 1Gbps, in parts of three new markets: Boston, Sacramento, and McAllen, Texas. They join Chicago’s The Loop, Indianapolis’s Lucas Oil Stadium, downtown Los Angeles, and San Francisco’s Financial District in currently supporting LTE-LAA; parts of at least 24 markets are expected to have this technology this year.

Crowdfunding Ramazzini's Research


Probable Carcinogen: this is the (minimal) safety classification of Radio-frequencies to be obtained from IARC (WHO)!
After the final report of the NTP (USA) study, great expectation is given to the final report of the Ramazzini Institute (Bologna, Italy).
The final evaluation is still ongoing. but it proceeds slowly due to lack of resources! To complete it, they need funds for at least € 50,000 not covered by the main sponsors including: Region Emilia Romagna and ARPA, who no longer want to support the search!
The Italian Electrosensitive Association (A.I.E.) has opened a fund-raising campaign (crowdfunding) in order to support Ramazzini's research.
We commit members, and invite friends and supporters to give their financial support to this initiative.
On Friday, at 2 pm, the concerned website is online. The link is as follows
Following the suggestions of the platform, it is very important that the announcement starts with the maximum of contacts and possibly donations.
So you ask to your friends to forward, in the same minutes ... hours, this announcement - with any changes and improvements - to their own contacts and their network asking recipients to transfer it to their personal contacts (as well as to donate, of course!).

My best regards
Giorgio Cinciripini
Associazione Italiana Elettrosensibili

Finally - 5G Health Effects Mentioned in Senate Commerce Committee



On February 6, for the first time health effects of 5G and wireless were mentioned in Senate Commerce Committee Meeting on 5G. The Senate Commerce Committee is the Committee entrusted in overseeing the FCC. 
I was there with less than a handful of us on July 14, 2016 when the FCC announced 5G. The same week we started our efforts to educate Congress about 5G and wireless health effects. Whenever a 5G meeting/hearing was held, we were trying to get the members of the Committee to ask even just one question about the health effects. Yesterday, February 6, two and a half years later, it finally happened.
I got a call from one of our advocates who attended the Senate Commerce Committee meeting and he was excited to tell me that Senator Blumenthal made a comment about the health effects.
In the hearing titled Winning the Race to 5G and the Next Era of Technology Innovation in the United States Senator Blumenthal  asked, “are there any health implicationsAre there any safety implications?” to the millions of the small cells that are likely to be located “close to homes, schools work places and closer and closer to the ground” . 
He mentioned  the letter that he had sent to the FCC in December, 2018 asking Commissioner Carr from the FCC to cite him the research on which the FCC relied upon to guarantee the public that 5G is safe. While we still do not have a copy of the FCC’s response, apparently according to Blumenthal, Commissioner Carr “Essentially has failed to do so” and said he referred him to the FDAIn regard to the FDA website Blumenthal said: “if you go to the FDA website, pretty unsatisfactory, there is basically a cursory and superficial citations” and mocked the statement on its website saying that the FDA encourages industry to conduct research and it was on cell phones not 5G. Then he said: “I believe the American people deserve to know what the health effects are.”
Blumenthal also said: “We are flying blind here on health and safety”. That is though inaccurate.  We know that the harms of non-thermal levels of RF/Microwave radiation are proven. We have more than ample scientific evidence and unfortunately also the Human Evidence which is in epidemic scale as the 5G Appeal states. We are flying blind but, to a definite greater disaster. 
To watch the video of the hearing PRESS HERE. Blumenthal starts at 2:04:00
To watch ONLY the part where Blumenthal Speaks, PRESS HERE
Since the FCC and the FDA didn’t provide answers he followed the FDA recommendation and asked industry – panelists “how much money has the industry provided for independent research on biological effects? Shouldn’t we scientifically ascertain the health effects? ” One of the panelists replied, “we rely on the expert agencies. There are no industry backed studies underway.  This new infrastructure is designed to be low powered, low interference.”    
So the FDA relies on industry and industry relies on the FDA…how long will this mockery of the American people will continue?
Senator Wicker (R-MISS) who is the new Chairman of the Committee (replaced Sen. Thune (R-SD)) summarized the hearing by mentioning the need to protect privacy but in response to Blumenthal’s comments on health Wicker read a quote from the National Cancer Institute, saying the research shows there is no consistent evidence that non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation increases cancer risk. I wonder why he didn’t mention the Government’s own study, the NTP study the biggest and most expensive study on this issue which found CLEAR EVIDENCE of cancer and DNA damage. 
Interestingly, the FCC did not appear in front of the Committee only industry was there. It is unusual. Considering the bad media the FCC has been getting following the House Commerce Committee accusing the FCC of Colluding with Industry and considering the municipalities lawsuit could it be that the Senate Commerce Committee (or industry which likely was involved in arranging this hearing) thought the FCC presence will contaminate the efforts to push 5G? 
Now we will have to see who will be the next member of the Committee who will do the right thing and speak the truth
Additional Links:

KEEP WORKING, CHANGE IS HAPPENING.  
Dafna Tachover