Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service. I'm Tanya Beckett.

Each week one question, four expert witnesses and an answer.

It's 11 o'clock on a damp Friday evening in early April in Liverpool,

one of Britain's largest northern cities.

Liverpool, like most of the rest of the world, is under lockdown.

It's eerily quiet.

Suddenly, eerily quiet. Suddenly emergency services take a call from a distressed resident reporting that a telephone mask close to the motorway is on fire. The blaze is quickly brought under control.

The city's mayor says that before the attack he had received threats relating to a bizarre theory.

A theory that had gained traction on social media

and claimed that 5G, the new generation of mobile technology, was in some way linked to the coronavirus pandemic.

The attack was one of many not just in the UK but also elsewhere in Europe. This week we're asking, why are people attacking 5G mobile

phone masts?

Part 1, Pickled Vegetables and Telecom Powder.

5G is the next generation of mobile internet.

For those of you old enough to remember before 4G we had 3G.

Our first expert witness is BBC technology reporter Zoe Kleinman. So what difference will 5G make?

So where is at the moment if you go to a football match or a concert

your phone will probably not work that well and keep cutting out because

4G can't handle all the internet traffic that's going on as people are trying to

communicate with each other, share videos and that sort of thing.

Well 5G is designed to handle that.

And 5G can not only handle more users, it can also handle more data.

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