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Verizon and AT&T's upcoming rollout of new C-Band 5G technology could cause chaos and lead to widespread delays of passenger and cargo flights, major U.S. airlines said on Monday in a letter sent to the White House National Economic Council, the FAA, and the FCC (via Reuters).

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"Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will essentially be grounded," read the statement, penned by CEOs of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, UPS Airlines, Alaska Air, Atlas Air, JetBlue Airways, and FedEx Express. More than 1,100 flights could be cancelled, diverted, or delayed, stranding over 100,000 passengers, and airlines have called for "immediate intervention."

The Federal Aviation Administration has claimed that interference from the C-Band 5G could affect airplane altimeters, impacting operations in poor weather conditions. The FAA has already implemented buffer zones around 50 major airports with wireless transmitters close to runways, but the airlines have said that this is not enough and are asking for C-Band 5G to be restricted in a two mile area around airport runways at affected locations.

According to the letter, the FAA has not cleared some of the airports that are "used by most of the traveling and shipping public," which is going to cause significant delays when C-Band spectrum goes live tomorrow.
Given the short time frame and the exigency of this completely avoidable economic calamity, we respectfully request you support and take whatever action necessary to ensure that 5G is deployed except when towers are too close to airport runways until the FAA can determine how that can be safely accomplished without catastrophic disruption.
AT&T and Verizon have been planning to deploy C-Band spectrum to improve their 5G networks since December, but have faced multiple delays due to objections from the FAA and FCC. The two companies last agreed to delay the rollout until January 19, to give airlines more time to prepare to ensure fewer disruptions to air operations.

The two carriers paid billions of dollars for the C-Band spectrum to bolster their 5G networks, and have ensured customers that improvements are coming soon. Verizon last week announced plans to expand 5G Ultra Wideband technology to more than 1,700 cities in the U.S. using the spectrum, and the two carriers are reluctant to agree to further delays.

In response to the letter from the airlines, the FAA said that it "will continue to ensure that the traveling public is safe as wireless companies deploy 5G. The FAA continues to work with the aviation industry and wireless companies to try to limit 5G-related flight delays and cancellations."

Verizon and AT&T this morning said that they will voluntarily delay turning on a limited number of 5G towers to address the aviation industry's concerns. AT&T said that it is frustrated by the FAA's lack of action, given the time the agency has had to prepare.
We are frustrated by the FAA's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it to do so in a timely manner.
At the current time, it seems C-Band spectrum will indeed begin rolling out on January 19 as planned, but areas around some airport runways will not be activated at this time to avoid signal interference.

Article Link: U.S. Airlines Warn of 'Catastrophic' Crisis With Impending 5G Rollout, AT&T and Verizon Agree to Delay Around Airports
 
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They’ve known this rollout has been planned for years. AT&T and Verizon have already delayed it twice over the past month.

AND, as the article says:
We are frustrated by the FAA's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it to do so in a timely manner.

So why is this an issue? Why weren’t they preparing for this? They’re hampering U.S. technological innovation.

Edit: removed factually incorrect statement
 
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This is why government regulators are a good thing and it’s a total lie that the “free market will optimize best societal decisions."

Government isn’t good for everything, even most things. But they do play a critical role in a decent, modern society.
 
Whoever dropped the ball on this, needs serious consequences… 5G and the various spectrums have LONG been known…
This situation could have easily been avoided, it’s called communication
I agree. It’s just a lack of communication.

If they are so worried about the danger why not take it to the court and order an injection?

Correction on spelling: Injunction.
 
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But why just now?

This is one of the consequences of the U.S. trying to push mmWave, just to be different and to go against global efforts. China had focused and deployed mid-band 5G equipment all around the world. Americans basically tried to reinvent the wheel against the laws of physics.

The U.S. finally admitted mid-band 5G is needed for mainstream users, but none of the preparation work had been done by FCC and FAA.
 
I still haven’t seen any articles that really explain about why this only just suddenly come up, and also why it is an issue in the first place after other countries have managed roll outs.
How have they managed it?
Is it ’just‘ the FAA being awkward for some reason, or a money issue somewhere?
Anyone stand to gain or lose from this rollout in the aviation industry?
 
For one it is winter now with poor weather visibility in many places, and the instrument approaches that need to use the radar altimeter (the instrument on the plane affected by 5G) to get the plane as low as possible in bad weather so the pilots can see the runway and complete the landing, and even on zero visibility approaches where the plane autoloands on the runway, would not be able to be used forcing the plane to divert to its alternate airport which has better weather. This costs money, and lowers efficiency to not have the plane be able to land at its intended destination.

This is going to require upgrades to the radar altimeters in planes to make them less susceptible to 5G, and that is expensive and puts the airplane out of commission during the retrofit OR the cell companies have to delay deployment to give time for all airplanes to get converted... or some other solution found to minimize interference.

As usual, it is always about money.
 
Are the airlines worried about safety here? Or is it about what they perceive as over zealous FCC/FAA rules hurting operations?

As I understand while there is a healthy dead band around RADALT frequency range, the C band gets close and there is a concern that some in-service older radalts might be listening to a broader range than they should, meaning that on approach an aircraft could be uncertain of its altitude (beyond the +/- % expected error).

These are theoretical concerns and europe is ahead of us on deployment and has not had issues, but you know the old formula theoretical problem + bureaucracy = certainty.

So yes, this could be measured and ascertained but we could also just delay it until next week and thus solving the problem forever.

-d
 
I still haven’t seen any articles that really explain about why this only just suddenly come up, and also why it is an issue in the first place after other countries have managed roll outs.
How have they managed it?
Is it ’just‘ the FAA being awkward for some reason, or a money issue somewhere?
Anyone stand to gain or lose from this rollout in the aviation industry?

The rest of the world focused on verifying the safety, auctioning, and deploying "pioneer" 5G bands, (e.g. 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz in Europe). Those frequencies are balanced between penetration and bandwidth. Ultra high mmWave frequencies would be deployed later down the road.

Due to politics, the U.S. focused on deploying technically infeasible 5G bands (above 24 GHz) as their pioneer bands. They finally realized the mistake in 2019 and began auctioning mid-band frequencies. The problem is, none of the groundwork had been done by any of the agencies.
 
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