5G (in US) likely to mess with weather forecasts

One of the ironies of using 24 GHz radio waves for 5G cell service: the frequencies are usable only for very short ranges, easily blocked by walls and windows, and rapidly absorbed by water vapor in the air.

Which is great for measuring water vapor by satellite for weather forecasts. Not so great for high-speed 5G coverage outside of dense metro areas.

Winners: city dwellers with expensive cell phones standing outside in the right locations – along with large companies selling telecom equipment, handsets, and service. Losers: everyone who needs better weather forecasts.

Obligatory BPL content: You won’t be getting extreme 5G speeds in the wilderness. Thank goodness!

— Rex

Rex, but that’s the nature of increased bandwidth, right?  Vastly more smaller sites, less power, less distance.

Beings on other planets will eventually receive I Love Lucy sitcoms and Walter Cronkite delivering the evening news from back when a few signals were broadcast at high power.  They’ll never know we’re now listening to Rush Limbaugh and watching Game of Thrones.  Alas, because telling everyone we’re xenophobes with weaponized dragons might be a good deterrent.

I think the telecoms have already been pushed to admit that 5G won’t scale – you’ll only see it in densely populated areas, not throughout the country. At least as it’s now being envisioned.

Beings on other planets will eventually receive I Love Lucy sitcoms and Walter Cronkite delivering the evening news from back when a few signals were broadcast at high power.
Doubtful. The signal power will be down in the background noise level (or lower) unless they are using huge parabolic antennae. Note that we did not transmit in focused beams either. And how would you justify the cost of those for I Love Lucy????

Cheers