ALERT: Thousands of JUMBO 5G Antennas Proposed for New York City

JOIN US IN SAYING NO TO WIRELESS POLLUTION
AND AESTHETIC BLIGHT!

• 27 zip codes in 13 NYC neighborhoods are the initial targets for jumbo 5G antennas to be placed on residential streets
• City officials have been misled that these massive wireless antennas can close the ‘digital divide’. Technologically speaking, nothing could be further from the truth. The proposed antennas would not address digital equity, would open the user to increased hacking and create national security vulnerabilities.
• Wireless technology is inadequate because of capacity constraints, and limited user interfaces, in contrast to hard-wired, direct-to-user connections through cable or fiber that offer true broadband capacity, reliability and speed. This is what low—and high—income residents should have access to.
• The need for hard-wired broadband and the finite nature of radio spectrum was explained in The National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy’s Re-Inventing Wires: The Future of Landlines and Networks.
• Hard-wired broadband provides a “futureproof” technology, according to Tom Wheeler, Esq., former FCC Chairman and CEO for 12 years of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Communications Association (CTIA).
• In Tom Wheeler’s testimony supporting The Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s America (LIFT) Act in March 2021, he said he champions a “fiber first” policy (i.e. over wireless), stating that earlier transmission speeds are “completely unacceptable now” and “far from adequate for tomorrow’s usage.”

“We must insist on ‘futureproof technology’ (fiber)…
Wireless may be a last resort option
in the most isolated areas, but it should not be
a first resort for most of America…”

–Tom Wheeler, former FCC Chairman and former CEO, CTIA

 
• The LIFT Act, which Wheeler supports, is calling for “pay for it once” grants for technologies that endure (i.e. fiber), not high cost subsidies of technologies that become rapidly obsolete (wireless).

“Pay for It Once”

• Wheeler says the focus needs to change from subsidizing companies (i.e. carriers) to a focus on the choice of technology being used and to the needs of the people who are supposed to be served.

“The focus must change to the choice of technology
being used, not subsidizing companies” (i.e. carriers).

–Tom Wheeler, former FCC Chairman and former CEO, CTIA

• The FCC has spent over $40 billion over the last decade in high cost subsidies [for wireless], Wheeler says, that have failed to deliver the goal of universal access to high-speed broadband. In contrast, he says an FCC analysis shows a one-time cost of approximately $40 billion could reach 98% of locations in the U.S. with Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) (i.e. true, high capacity broadband).
• 

  Photo Credit: “LinkNYC – Link5G Design Proposal” presented by NYC Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications, CityBridge, and ZenFi

  NYC officials must stop approving wireless antennas for the City, including the proposed Jumbo 5G Antennas in question, and instead approve only reliable, safe, high speed, high-capacity, energy-efficient and enduring fiber optic telecommunications. Fiber is a far better investment.

• Fiber To The Premises (FTTP), besides being the optimal internet access technology today from many technological perspectives, will also lessen citizen surveillance; improve privacy; avoid well-documented biological and health risks to people, pets, wildlife and the ecosystem from Radio Frequency Radiation exposures; strengthen local economies by creating truly fast, reliable internet on which businesses depend; and eliminate the wireless-created holes in our national security infrastructure.
• The proposed Jumbo 5G Antennas (potentially one per block) will significantly alter the character of New York City, by giving rise to aesthetic blight: tarnishing the appearance of neighborhoods, and historic buildings and designated landmarks; detracting from the revered presence of churches, temples, mosques, and parks; and bringing down real estate values.
• The NYC Commissioner in her sole discretion may increase the number of antennas per block without any notice to the public.
• The proposed Jumbo 5G Antennas with their microwave- and millimeter-emitting waves will be obtrusive in the streets, located right outside homes and apartments, and will use new frequencies and signaling characteristics that increase biological risk.
• Homes will become more highly polluted with ambient radiation from outside with residents having no say in the matter and no refuge. The Jumbo 5G radiation-emitting antennas will harm people, plants and pets.
• The New York State Bill of Rights was amended November 2, 2021 with an Environmental Rights Amendment (Prop 2) creating a constitutional “right to clean water, clean air, and a healthful environment.”
  

  Photo Credit: “LinkNYC – Link5G Design Proposal” presented by NYC Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications, CityBridge, and ZenFi

  Radio Frequency Radiation (RFR) is a form of air pollution that, like so many other air pollutants, one cannot see.

• Insurance companies recognize wireless radiation as a pollutant. They will not insure wireless carriers for injuries from wireless radiation. Will the City indemnify its residents against wireless injuries?
• The adequacy of the FCC exposure guidelines for public safety have recently been called into question by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, when the Court ordered the FCC to reevaluate the guidelines. The FCC, in deciding in 2019 to not strengthen its exposure guidelines for public safety, failed to review over 10,000 pages of scientific evidence of harms and to adequately investigate the risks, as is expected of a federal agency. The Court ruled that the FCC’s inaction was “arbitrary and capricious” for not addressing the evidence submitted. Submissions included the radiation’s impact on children and the environment, harms from long-term exposures, including neurological injuries, the aggregate exposure from different wireless devices simultaneously, and how much these exposures have increased over time since 1996.
• The proposed Jumbo 5G antennas for NYC will potentially impact hundreds of species of birds and their habitats in all five boroughs, including migratory birds in the Atlantic Flyway. A seminal paper, “Effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields on flora and fauna, part 1. Rising ambient EMF levels in the environment”, addresses the need to recognize wireless radiation as a form of pollution impacting flora and fauna, saying air should be designated as ‘habitat’.
• According to The Shift Project report – “Lean ICT” –Towards Digital Sobriety, the digital transition contributes to global warming, with energy consumption of information and communication technologies (ICT) increasing at an unsustainable 9% per year. The prudent strategy in telecommunications, in light of climate change, is not wireless but Fiber To The Premises (FTTP).

Please Join us to Stop Jumbo 5G Antennas,
Wireless Pollution and Aesthetic Blight

 
We are calling for:

• Borough Presidents and City Councils to become informed on the inadequacies and public safety hazards of providing wireless antenna infrastructure.
• Rejection of the proposed Jumbo 5G antennas in all 5 boroughs.
• Borough Presidents and City Councils to commit to a fiber-to-the premises (FTTP) strategy to achieve enduring, high-speed advanced communications for all New Yorkers in order to permanently end the digital divide.
• Where antennas have already been installed in NYC, exposures should be required to be ‘As Low as Reasonably Achievable’ (ALARA) per the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for Radio Frequency Radiation.
• An Environmental Review of any new antennas in NYC
• An Environmental Review of all existing antennas in NYC

 
Contact:

 
Media Contacts:

Photo Credit: “LinkNYC – Link5G Design Proposal” presented by NYC Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications, CityBridge, and ZenFi

 
Supporting Groups:

Download PDF of Post

 
Article: “4,000 Giant-Sized 5G Antennas Proposed for NYC; Opposition Grows,” by Camilla Rees, Dec. 4, 2021, WestView News
 
Article: “Opposition to 4000 JUMBO Cell Towers in NYC Increases,”
by Zen L. Honeycutt, Dec. 7, 2021, Moms Across America
 
Updated Link5G Design Proposal 12-13-21
 

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