5G Health Concerns
Myth vs Reality

As I shall explain, much of the 5G-magic (i.e. throughput increase or latency reduction etc.) depends on class-2 of my categories. So let us discuss those classes and what changes they bring. 

Class 1: Over-the-Air Magic.

Most people are concerned with this part of 5G. People think that in 5G (and beyond) high-frequency mmWaves would cover us all around. This myth is neither true nor economically wise for network operators.

Many operators are not much interested in widely deploying mmWave antennas (if at all). The mmWaves have a very low transmission range, and the deployment of a large number of antennas to provide wider coverage is simply a bad business decision that would never reach a point of Return-on-Investment (ROI). There may be a very sparse deployment of mmWave antennas, for example within densely packed football stadiums, but that too is not very likely on a larger scale for the same ROI point of view.

Most 5G network deployment would be in 3.7 GHz or lower frequency bands (even as low as 700–800 MHz). (The 3.7 GHz is the sweet-spot band). These bands are already in use in 3G/4G.

Then how would 5G increase the throughput? The answer is in two parts!

First, in terms of frequency domain the magic happens by playing around with the same frequency ranges we use in LTE/LTE-A (more or less). For example, unlike LTE, we can densely pack more information bits per second by using some clever techniques. Same frequency band as 3G/4G, different Physical layer methods!

Second, let's see the Second class of our so-called 5G-magic classification.

Class 2: Magic related to Network and Parameters

Actually, in my opinion, this is the part where more than 70% of the changes happen in 5G and it differs from 4G/3G. For example, 5G can still use the 3G/4G bands, but with different numerology. For example, in 4G the Transmission Time Interval (TTI) was only 1 ms. But in 5G, it can be 1 or 0.5 or 0.25 etc. ms. It means there that without going to mmWave, we can have drastically improved latency in 5G.

Other changes include the decentralization of nodes within the gNB, such as the addition of the Central Unit (CU) and Distributed Unit (DU). This decentralization allows the distribution of the gNB-operations in multiple stages/nodes, hence improving the processing capabilities. Furthermore, the Softwarization of many nodes allows more flexibility in the operations as well. There are other changes at the network level and in terms of parameters that are contributing more to the 5G magic than the mmWave itself.

Moving forward, we will have more democratization in the network with the introduction of Open-RAN.

Summary

The concerns related to the 5G-era seeing a humungous amount of mmWave base stations is mostly driven by academia and not supported by the industry. Such misplaced claims have raised concerns related to the health effects of mmWave or a large number of base stations. Most of the innovation in 5G is driven by factors that have nothing to do with going higher up in the radio wave spectrum.

PS. It should also be noted that there is no concrete physiological research in my knowledge that speaks of the adverse effects of radio waves on human bodies!