Indian researchers to study health impacts of 5G

New Delhi: A group of researchers from India and New Zealand will investigate the possibilities of health impacts of electromagnetic radiation caused by the 5G networks. The project aims to develop new techniques to assess 5G wireless signals and their electromagnetic exposure to humans, reported by Indian Express.

The findings will be compared against the existing thresholds that have been set by several regulatory bodies.

Massey University will collaborate with India’s Birla Institute of Technology and Auckland University of Technology on the project ‘Analysing Harmful Electromagnetic Exposure due to Future Millimeter Wave Transmissions’ over 2016-2017.

“If the future wireless signals are found to be harmless to the human health, this project would build consumer confidence in the future telecommunication services. However, if this project shows that the 5G network leads to, or potentially may lead to adverse health impacts, the industry would be required to modify the underlying wireless technology to ensure the human well being,” principal investigator Faraz Hasan, School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Massey University, said in the statement.

“With some industry giants predicting 50 billion connected devices by 2020 and with the employment of much higher transmission frequencies proposed for the 5G rollout, it is essential to determine how the future of telecommunications will affect the health of its user,” Hasan said.

This research is one of the externally funded projects currently being carried out by the Telecommunication and Network Engineering research group under the Electronics Cluster at Massey University.