AT&T and Verizon agree to delay launch of 5G amid airline fears

AT&T and Verizon have reluctantly agreed to delay the launch of their C-band 5G technology after the FAA and pilots unions threatened to cancel thousands of flights over fears the rollout would make it unsafe to fly.

The new technology was due to launch around the US on Wednesday January 19th, a deadline that has been in the making for two years. To launch, AT&T and Verizon towers that emit the signals necessary to power it were due to be switched on.

But there are some 500 towers that the FAA says are too close to 88 airports and could make it unsafe for planes to fly. The technology, the pilots say, will confuse the radar altimeter that some aircraft use when landing to tell how far they are from the ground.

If the altimeter can't be trusted, pilots say it's unsafe to fly and thousands of commercial and cargo flights will have to be grounded. It would spark 'mass' disruption to the travel industry and bring even more chaos to what is, in some airports, an already shambolic situation due to staff shortages.

In an attempt to avoid that, the wireless carriers earlier this month created buffer zones around 50 of the 88 at-risk airports.

The FAA will not specify which airports do not yet have a buffer zone, nor will the airlines.

But on Monday, the CEOs of several major airlines wrote to the Biden administration asking for interference and said thousands of flights would be canceled if the 5G deployment went ahead without protection at all of the airports.

The White House is now helping broker an agreement between the two industries. At a briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the White House 'understands what is at stake for both industries.'

A deal is being worked on negotiated now to allow 90 percent of the towers - 4,500 - to be turned on, holding back the 500 of concern. It's unclear how long the FAA and airlines now have to resolve their safety concerns.

AT&T is now demanding to know why the FAA - a government body - waited so long before sounding such alarm.

'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 do so in a timely manner.'

The 5G signals could give pilots false altitude readings as they approach the runway, so the FAA has instructed them to ignore their altimeters to avoid potentially disastrous results at 88 airports across the U. S.

Despite the urgency conveyed by the CEOs of American Airlines, JetBlue, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, as well as officials from FedEx Express and UPS Airlines, Transport Secretary Buttigieg has yet to make a public statement about the issue ahead of Wednesday's rollout.

Of the 88 airports, there are currently 50 with 5G buffers around them to reduce the interference of 5G, including the major John F. Kennedy, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago O'Hare and Los Angeles International airports. The FAA has not named the remaining 38 affected airports.

Despite the buffer, the airports could still face 5G interference.

If any of the 88 airports experience bad weather, where altimeters are a necessity, the FAA and U. S. airlines said flights would be cancelled, diverted or delayed.

Allied Pilots Association spokesperson Dennis Tajer echoed the airlines' concerns and urged the cellular companies to push back the 5G rollout.

'This is reckless, it's dangerous, and it's got to stop,' Tajer told the Today Show on Tuesday.

'Take a pause. This is about a cellphone signal, and we're focused on protecting lives.'

The warning comes after airline International airports and airlines have also begun warning customers to check if their trips to the U. S. will be cancelled or delayed due to the 5G launch.

Although the FAA approved 48 of the 88 airports most directly affected by 5G to use two radio altimeters to avoid confusion on Sunday, it ultimately issued an order to all pilots to avoid using the instruments because they could still face issues.

The buffer zones call for the 5G towers to be located at least two miles away from airports and to limit the towers' heights.

'Even with the approvals granted by the FAA..., U. S. airlines will not be able to operate the vast majority of passenger and cargo flights due to the FAA's 5G-related flight restrictions unless action is taken prior to the planned January 19 rollout,' Airlines for America, which represents American Airlines, Delta Airlines and FedEx, told Reuters.

As of Tuesday morning, the stocks for American Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines remained stable with a small upward trend.

The chief executives of major U. S. passenger and cargo airlines have warned of a "catastrophic" aviation crisis this week as AT&T and Verizon deploy new 5G services.They said the new C band 5G service set to begin on Wednesday could render a significant number of aircraft unusable, causing chaos for U.S. flights and potentially stranding tens of thousands of Americans overseas.Here is the background to the dispute:The United States auctioned mid-range 5G bandwidth to mobile phone companies in early 2021 in the 3.7-3.98 GHz range on the spectrum known as C band, for about $80 billion.The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has warned that the new 5G technology could interfere with instruments such as altimeters, which measure how far above the ground an airplane is travelling.Altimeters operate in the 4.2-4.4 GHz range and the concern is that the auctioned frequencies sit too close to this range.In addition to altitude, altimeter readouts are also used to facilitate automated landings and to help detect dangerous currents called wind shear.United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said last month the FAA's 5G directives would bar the use of radio altimeters at about 40 of the biggest U.S. airports.U.S. airlines have warned the directives could disrupt up to 4% of daily flights.Kirby said if left unresolved it could mean that at major U.S. airports in the event of bad weather, cloud cover or even heavy smog "you could only do visual approaches essentially."WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THE FREQUENCY MAKE?The higher the frequency in the spectrum, the faster the service. So in order to get full value from 5G, operators want to operate at higher frequencies.Some of the C band spectrum auctioned had been used for satellite radio but the transition to 5G means there will be much more traffic.WHAT DO THE TELECOMS COMPANIES SAY?Verizon and AT&T have argued that C band 5G has been deployed in about 40 other countries without aviation interference issues.They have agreed to buffer zones around 50 airports in the United States, similar to those used in France, for six months to reduce interference risks.WHY NOT AN ISSUE ELSEWHERE?The European Union in 2019 set standards for mid-range 5G frequencies in a 3.4-3.8 GHz range, a lower frequency than the service set to be rolled out in the United States. The bandwidth has been auctioned in Europe and is in use in many of the bloc's 27 member states so far without issue.The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which oversees 31 states, said on Dec. 17 the issue was specific to U.S. airspace. "At this stage, no risk of unsafe interference has been identified in Europe," it said.FAA officials have noted the spectrum used by France (3.6-3.8 GHz) sits further away from the spectrum (4.2-4.4 GHz) used for altimeters in the United States and France's power level for 5G is much lower than what is authorized in the United States.Verizon has said it will not use spectrum that is closer to the higher band for several years.In South Korea, the 5G mobile communication frequency is 3.42-3.7 GHz band and there has been no report of interference with radio wave since commercialization of 5G in April 2019.Currently, 5G mobile communication wireless stations are in operation near airports, but there have been no reports of problems."Wireless carriers in nearly 40 countries throughout Europe and Asia now use the C band for 5G, with no reported effects on radio altimeters that operate in t... (Read more)

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