June 3, 2007
Naperville (Ill.)

By Glenn Fleishman

The Belfast Telegraph distorts Wi-Fi story: An anti-mobile masts group calls for the removal of school Wi-Fi networks in Northern Ireland. The story says, “The call came after it was revealed that classroom ‘wi-fi’ networks give off three times as much radiation as a typical mobile phone mast…researchers found the maximum signal strength from just one laptop was three times higher than that of a mobile phone mast.” Which is a dramatic distortion of the BBC Panorama program, bad as it was. The signals measured were an active Wi-Fi network in a classroom versus the signal from a nearby mobile phone base station (mast). And it wasn’t researchers: it was a single individual who makes at least part of his living from selling equipment to people who fear radio waves.

Gwinnett County, Georgia, can’t afford Wi-Fi: They’ve got a grant and some allotted matching funds, but it’s becoming ever harder for lower-population areas to get the kind of “free” Wi-Fi that service providers have offered. The free lunch is over, which may make citywide and countywide Wi-Fi much less appealing, and much less palatable to local taxpayers.

Naperville, Ill., to add Wi-Fi downtown; faces some local tinfoil hat wearers: MetroFi’s network in the town should be active in downtown by July. Those pesky utility pole contracts have held up matters again. A local resident told the city council to beware, and the reporter duly repeated her claims without investigation: “Studies range from the declaration that Wi-Fi is a low-power system that emits less radiation than a microwave or mobile phone, to a system that can over time alter mood and behavior and even emit enough radiation to cause tumors have since been provided to elected officials.” There are no such studies showing tumors caused by Wi-Fi.

Posted by Glennf at June 3, 2007 1:37 PM