US telecommunications companies and airlines have been struggling for weeks over its potential impact. 5G Wireless services on aircraft, unlike the rollout of new generation services elsewhere, have proceeded without widely disseminating new security concerns.
Here’s some background on the controversy, including Verizon Communications and AT&T on Monday agreed to a two-week delay in using newly acquired wireless spectrum, coming back from a standoff that threatened to disrupt flights. The agreement promises to avert most, but not all, potential disruptions to air travel 5G Deployment
what’s the problem?
The US auctioned mid-range 5G bandwidth to mobile phone companies in early 2021 on 3.7-3.98 GHz of spectrum in the range known as C-band for about $80 billion.
US aviation industry groups raised concerns in recent months, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a formal warning in November of the risk of interference with flight equipment.
In the airline industry, radar altimeters, which measure altitude, operate in the 4.2–4.4 GHz range and there are concerns that there is not a large enough buffer from the frequencies used by telecommunications companies.
The companies have faced pressure from the White House, airlines and aviation unions amid concerns about possible interference of 5G with sensitive aircraft electronics such as radio altimeters.
Why is this potentially important to aviation?
Radio altimeters help reduce the risk of accidents or collisions by giving accurate readings of proximity to the ground. Readouts are also used to facilitate automatic landings and to help detect dangerous currents called windshears.
What difference does frequency make?
In short, the higher the frequency in the spectrum, the faster the service. So to get the full value out of 5G, operators want to operate on higher frequencies.
Some of the C-band spectrum auctioned in the United States was used for satellite radio, but the transition to 5G meant there would be a lot of traffic.
Is this problem elsewhere?
After years of international discussions, in 2019 the European Union set standards for mid-range 5G frequencies in the 3.4–3.8 GHz range.
They have so far been auctioned and used without any problems in many of the bloc’s 27 member states.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which oversees 31 states, said on 17 December that the latest discussions were specific to US airspace. “At this stage, no risk of unsafe intervention has been identified in Europe,” it said.
AT&T and Verizon have agreed to adopt exclusion zones similar to those used in France for six months around several US airports.
FAA officials noted that the spectrum (3.6–3.8 GHz) used by France sits farther away than the United States (4.2–4.4 GHz) used for radio altimeters and for 5G. The power level of France is also much lower than authorized. United States.
But Verizon said it would not use the spectrum that France has been using for several years.
In South Korea, the 5G mobile communication frequency is in the 3.42–3.7GHz band and there have been no reports of interference with radio waves since 5G was commercialized in April 2019.
Currently, 5G mobile communication wireless stations are operational near airports, but there have been no reports of problems.
US wireless trade group CTIA said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission that “wireless carriers in approximately 40 countries across Europe and Asia now use C-band for 5G, with no effect on radio altimeters.” which operate in the same internationally designated 4.2-4.4 GHz band.”
It said, “Every day US aircraft, carrying thousands of US citizens, land in these countries without incident and there is no expression of concern by the FAA or foreign aviation regulators. This is the classic dog that doesn’t bark. Physics The rules are no different in the United States than in Europe or Asia.”
But airlines warned that uncompromising safety precautions could disrupt up to 4% of daily flights. One airline group said the issue “had the potential to divert or cancel thousands of flights every day, thus disrupting millions of passenger reservations, causing considerable disruption.”
United Airlines chief executive Scott Kirby said last month that leaving the interference issue unresolved would mean that “you” at major US airports in the event of bad weather, cloud cover or even heavy haze. Only essentially visual approaches can do that.”
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