Another bunch of Illinformed muppets!!

[Big_Spark]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,591-2461748,00.html

This is simply going too far now, people who know nothing are panicing and talking rubbish.

Stowe School, the Buckinghamshire public school, also removed part of its wireless network after a teacher became ill. Michael Bevington, a classics teacher for 28 years at the school, said that he had such a violent reaction to the network that he was too ill to teach.

“I felt a steadily widening range of unpleasant effects whenever I was in the classroom,” he said. “First came a thick headache, then pains throughout the body, sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes, sudden skin pains and burning sensations, along with bouts of nausea. Over the weekend, away from the classroom, I felt completely normal.”

Anthony Wallersteiner, the head teacher of Stowe School, said that he was planning to put cabled networks in all new classrooms and boarding houses.

Sounds to me like the Guy suffers panic attacks when having to face the kids, perhaps he should get councilling instead of a soap box.

This kind of "idiot power" needs to be addressed, and addressed urgently, next they will be having us turn off the National Grid and go back to Horse drawn carriages!!

 

[Steve]

Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the Health Protection Agency, said that evidence of potentially harmful effects of microwave radiation had become more persuasive over the past five years. His report said that while there was a lack of hard information of damage to health, the approach should be precautionary.

AND???? WTF has microwave radiation got to do with WIFI????

We have WIFI in our shops for the use of the handheld terminal. Nobody has ever complained. I use the terminal for sometimes hours at a time, as do many or the society's 16,000 staff, and never had any ill effects (except maybe a sore thumb). Many shops use the same technology. You can see the antennas sticking out from the ceilings. Oh, and how many people now live next door to someone with a wireless LAN? I bet that "classics teacher" does Someone ought to go and ask his neighbours.

(what exactly does a "classics teacher" teach? )

Judith Davies, who has a daughter at the school, said: “Many people campaign against mobile phone masts near schools, but there is a great deal of ignorance about wireless computer networks. Yet they are like having a phone mast in the classroom and the transmitters are placed very close to the children.”

Erm . . . . yeah. Cos WIFI uses microwave technology now . . . .

 

[JohnD]

 

[Big_Spark]

Crafty...WiFi is Microwave.

They transmit at 2.4GHz, which is firmly at the bottom end of the microwave range.

However it is a frequency that does not vibrate water molecules, like in a microwave and the power is so low as to be negligable.

For reference, microwaves are radio frequencies from around 800MHz to 20GHz.

On your other comments though I concur..

 

[BoxBasher]

My PC is in my room, along with the wireless router. Only time I ever wake up with headaches is due to alcohol, nothing to do with radio waves.

 

[Steve]

So wireless LAN is no more dangerous to our health than fluorescent lights. In fact, IMO fluorescent lights are more harmful. You dont hear people saying "blast this infernal wireless LAN, i've got a headache now", do you?

And how long have fluorescent lights been installed in shops, offices, schools, and increasingly, homes?

 

[Big_Spark]

Crafty..what have Florries got to do with WiFi?

 

[Steve]

Crafty..what have Florries got to do with WiFi?

Nothing. I was simply comparing the 2 technologies. You get the odd person who suffers headaches from fluorescent lights flickering or high-pitched wirring from HF ballasts etc. Yet dispite these complaints, fluorescent lights have been in use for many years, in fact their use is overtaking traditional filament bulbs.

In this day and age, all it takes is one muppet to complain about new technology and the "stuck in the past" brigade comes out in force and wants it banning everywhere except their own homes, where they have 6 access points due to the thick walls.

If fluorescent lighting was new technology now, i'll bet many people would complain about its harshness and flickering and headaches, it would get a load of bad press, and it would be banned

 

[2scoops0406]

Why's it called WiFi anyway? why not call it by it's glorious title of 801.11g ?

 

[Softus]

For reference, microwaves are radio frequencies from around 800MHz to 20GHz.

No they're not - microwaves are microwaves, and radio waves are radio waves.

Also, there's no universally accepted strict definition, so it's going to be interesting to see your justification for the use of the word "firmly"...

 

[2scoops0406]

For reference, microwaves are radio frequencies from around 800MHz to 20GHz.

No they're not - microwaves are microwaves, and radio waves are radio waves.

The second of the day.

 

[eggplant]

Why's it called WiFi anyway? why not call it by it's glorious title of 801.11g

802.11g is a part of the 802.11 standard, there are other standards such as 802.11a and 802.11b, b & g being more common, a and g operate on the 2.4Ghz band whereas a operates on the 5Ghz. Both a and g offer speeds up to 54Mbps whereas b only up to 11.
Anyways, back to the original post, first off, sack the teacher for trying to pull a fast one, and no doubt waste £1000's of tax payers money with legal costs etc. Then cable the school and pout in a proper cabled infrastructure and watch how fast the network becomes! leave the wireless of course because wireless does indeed have its uses, but shouldnt really just be thrown in any old where to save money whilst at the same time decreasing potential performance an often increasing support costs.

 

[BoxBasher]

I used to get headaches and feel sick a lot when I was based in a depot where the office was next to a pylon... right outside the window.

I could be feeling fine all day and WHAM! Hour in the office felt like rubbish.

Reverse if I started the day in office and was out on site in afternoon.

I did read in a police mag once about a few officers who have developed tumours in their chest area, in directly where their new "airwave" style radios clip. (old style had transmitter on belt, new ones are all-in-one's that clip to chest...)

 

[2scoops0406]

Well, at the risk of sounding pedantic, pretty much all networks in schools are WAN traffic biased not LAN therefore a structured cabled approach will not make a jot of difference. 54 Mbps will be just fine.

 

[eggplant]

pretty much all networks in schools are WAN traffic biased

How do you mean? when users logon they logon to a server/servers in the schools comms room, not a comms room at a remote site, their work is stored on the server(s) and threfore dragged accross the LAN and back each time a document is opened/saved. 54Mbps is nowhere near enough, and please remember this is the MAXIMUM (forgetting turbo modes etc for now) bandwidth, and also bearing in mind how much a network (wireless or otherwise) will slow down when using actives that cant handle the throughput, I've yet to see any wireless active that can even think about competing with mid-high end copper or fibre switches.

54 Mbps will be just fine

for basic internet access and assuming the access point/wireless router can handle the amount of concurrent clients then yes.