In a decision highly anticipated by both the telecommunications industry and the weather-forecasting community, on 22 November the global organization tasked with managing radio-spectrum use announced new emission limits for deploying 5G technologies.

The standard set by the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) is more stringent than that proposed by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But many meteorologists remain concerned that high emission levels from 5G signals in the 24 GHz band will bleed into the 23.8 GHz frequency that weather satellites use to detect water vapor in the atmosphere (see Physics Today, August 2019, page 24).

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