Actually depending on the local law (EU here) usage is usage.
Most patent holders (i.e. the mobile communication industry, think Qualcomm, Ericssion, Huawei, Intel, Nokia, Operators etc.) don't enforce patents on non-commercial activities. If you make money with standards that have patents applied there are licensing schemes.
On the other side of the world Freifunk community network in Germany has in i believe illegal activities to protect their users, and have fought up to the supreme court for that. Sorry i can't really provide a source as i don't speak german but it has something to do with secondary liability.
So overall, please never let anyone dictate all the good you should do. Especially not lawmakers and lawyers.
Why the hell would i want free-software stack for that tech? On one hand it'll be used to legitimize 5G in the first place which is far from consensual topic, even in tech-friendly circles. On the other hand, i conceptually appreciate the idea to run my own GSM stack, BUT 5G is mostly worse (if i want short range i'll just do wifi thanks) and even if i run my own stack, commercial operators will never peer with me so my users won't be able to talk with anyone else (pretty useless).
In my very personal view, cell phone networks are useless pieces of tech that need to be replaced with proper Internet infrastructure.
> The report, published Saturday, found that 5G networks could be responsible for an extra 3 to 7 billion extra tonnes of CO2 released into atmosphere.
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20201220-deploying-5g-wil...
> moveed to 5G system architecture already while keeping their 4G air-interface
Yes, so that means operator have to deploy their new 5G towers. And in addition, they still have to maintain existing infrastructure, or redeploy 2G/4G setup on their new towers. In my opinion, that's a strong maintenance burden, and a strong waste of resources that we could do without.
But what's really shocking is that most of the population still has bad connectivity, and those who have the 4G are already pretty happy with it. It's an understatement to say it's an insult to pour billions of $$$$ into 5G when some folks still don't have any (or so little) xDSL or even 2G.
