{"id":862,"date":"2005-11-30T16:15:36","date_gmt":"2005-12-01T00:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/?p=862"},"modified":"2005-11-30T16:15:36","modified_gmt":"2005-12-01T00:15:36","slug":"wireless-internet-in-berkeley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/30\/wireless-internet-in-berkeley\/","title":{"rendered":"Wireless Internet in Berkeley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Councilwoman Maio<\/a>,<\/p>\n

My name is Cyrus Farivar and I am a technology journalist who learned my
\ntrade while a student at UC Berkeley. I wrote for The Daily Californian
\nand watched the City Council take stands against various issues.
\nSometimes those decisions are made with conviction and well-thought out
\nreasoning, and sometimes those decisions are made with half-baked ideas
\nthat come from somewhere else.<\/p>\n

When I found out that the Berkeley City Council was considering building
\na citywide WiFi network, I thought to myself that this was a moment of
\nclear vision. How possibly could there be any downsides to this? Cheap
\nInternet for all Berkeley residents? How could this be a bad thing?<\/p>\n

However, in last night’s City Council meeting you managed to turn a
\ndiscussion of wireless Internet access into a soapbox for repeating
\nsomething that you heard on KPFA.<\/p>\n

I didn’t hear the program that you were referring to, but a few minutes
\non Google lead me to the following reputable pieces of research:<\/p>\n

I submit to you the following, quoted from the website of the Federal
\nDrug Administration<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Do wireless phones pose a health hazard?<\/p>\n

The available scientific evidence does not show that any health problems
\nare associated with using wireless phones. There is no proof, however,
\nthat wireless phones are absolutely safe. Wireless phones emit low
\nlevels of radiofrequency energy (RF) in the microwave range while being
\nused. They also emit very low levels of RF when in the stand-by mode.
\nWhereas high levels of RF can produce health effects (by heating
\ntissue), exposure to low level RF that does not produce heating effects
\ncauses no known adverse health effects. Many studies of low level RF
\nexposures have not found any biological effects. Some studies have
\nsuggested that some biological effects may occur, but such findings have
\nnot been confirmed by additional research. In some cases, other
\nresearchers have had difficulty in reproducing those studies, or in
\ndetermining the reasons for inconsistent results. “<\/i><\/p>\n

From the American Cancer Society<\/a>: “Cell phone antennas or towers are unlikely to cause cancer.”<\/p>\n

And most recently, from the Electromagnetic Field Committee in The
\nNetherlands, via Reuters<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – There is no evidence that radiation from mobile
\nphones or mobile phone and TV towers is harmful to people, but more
\ninvestigation is needed, the Dutch Health Council said in a new report
\non Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Electromagnetic Fields Committee of the council, which advises the
\nDutch government, studied fresh research from around the world published
\nbetween 2003 and October 2005, and said the outcome of studies proved
\neither inconclusive or did not meet scientific criteria.”<\/i><\/p>\n

While I agree that health concerns are something that should not be
\ntaken lightly, it would seem that the body of evidence would seem to
\ndisprove your concerns.<\/p>\n

I hope that the Berkeley City Council will move expeditiously on the
\nconstruction of a municipal network. When it is built, I will be among
\nthe first to use it.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Cyrus Farivar
\nOakland, Calif.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Councilwoman Maio, My name is Cyrus Farivar and I am a technology journalist who learned my trade while a student at UC Berkeley. I wrote for The Daily Californian and watched the City Council take stands against various issues. Sometimes those decisions are made with conviction and well-thought out reasoning, and sometimes those decisions are made with half-baked ideas that come from somewhere else. When I found out that the Berkeley City Council was considering building a citywide WiFi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20,88,213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-berkeley","category-i-love-the-internet","category-wtf","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4uks-dU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}