Telecoms Agree to Delay 5G Rollout Near ‘Some’ Airports

AT&T and Verizon, set to roll out U.S. 5G service Wednesday, on Tuesday agreed to delay the new cellular service near some airports after several passenger and cargo airlines warned it could trigger “significant operational disruption.” 

The airlines sent a joint letter Monday “with urgency” to multiple U.S. government agencies calling for “immediate intervention” and suggesting the 5G rollout would have consequences “substantially worse than we originally anticipated.”

“To be blunt, the nation’s commerce will grind to a halt,” wrote 10 airline executives—including CEOs from American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines—on stationery from industry association Airlines for America to U.S. Department of Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Federal Aviation Administration administrator Stephen Dickson, National Economic Council director Brian Deese and Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

The letter requested that 5G “be implemented everywhere in the country except within the approximate two miles of airport runways at affected airports as defined by the FAA on Jan. 19, 2022.”

The U.S. Travel Association echoed the airlines’ sentiments and urged for a 5G deployment delay. “The implementation of 5G around affected airports threatens to disrupt domestic and international air travel, delay thousands of passengers, and cause unnecessary economic harm to the national and the entire travel industry—not just airlines,” said U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Roger Dow in a statement on Tuesday.

The public pressure from the airline and travel industries appeared to work.

President Joe Biden thanked AT&T and Verizon for the agreed delay around “key airports” and for continuing to work with DOT. “This agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90 percent of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled,” wrote Biden. “My team has been engaging nonstop with the wireless carriers, airlines and aviation equipment manufacturers to chart a path forward for 5G deployment and aviation to safely co-exist—and, at my direction, they will continue to do so until we close the remaining gap and reach a permanent, workable solution around these key airports.”

The telecom companies did not immediately state which airports qualify as “key.” But AT&T and Verizon had planned to start operations in 46 markets, which would have affected at least 88 airports, according to FAA statements. 

5G Issues, Explained

The safety concerns about 5G concern interference with aircraft radar instruments that are used in lower altitudes on frequencies that are near the 5G C-band frequencies. This could come into play during inclement weather or in geographies where pilots rely on instruments to land planes. In the U.S., the 5G bandwidth auctioned in early 2021 to mobile phone companies was in the 3.7 to 3.98 GHz range, and aircraft altimeters operate in the 4.2 to 4.4 GHz range, which is within a 200 MHz band that is considered a “reasonable buffer to have between frequencies so they do not interfere with each other,” AviationManuals CEO Mark Baier told BTN. 

The 5G rollout had been scheduled for Jan. 5, but after earlier requests to Buttigieg from the airline industry because of safety concerns, AT&T and Verizon agreed to a two-week postponement, and the aviation and telecommunications industries agreed to work together on a solution. 

The wireless companies offered to implement a set of mitigations comparable to measures used in some European 5G operating environments for six months around 50 airports identified as those with the greatest effect to the U.S. aviation sector. 

There have been no reported problems with the use of 5G services and aircraft in the European Union. There are at least two differences between the 5G services offered in Europe and what is planned for the United States. For one, “Europe has chosen a slightly lower frequency, a band of 3.4 to 3.8 GHz for 5G,” Baier said. “That is lower, but it allows for the 200 MHz safety buffer. The other thing some airports have done is pointed any 5G towers in reasonably close proximity to airports downward. Here, the towers are all essentially horizontal.”

The downward trajectory of the towers affects the local population’s 5G reception, but based on testing, it is apparently less likely to interfere with aircraft equipment, Baier explained. 

The FAA also has noted that the 5G buffer zones in France cover the last 96 seconds of a flight, whereas the buffer around the U.S. airports protect only the last 20 seconds of the flight. Further, the 5G power levels in the U.S., at 1,585 watts, are about 2.5 times higher than the 631 watts used in France. 

On Monday, the FAA had approved about 45 percent of the U.S. commercial fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many of the airports where 5G C-band was planned for deployment. The agency approved two radio altimeter models that are installed in a wide variety of Boeing and Airbus planes. The models approved include some Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767, MD-10/-11 and Airbus A310, A319, A320, A321, A330 and A350 models.

Previously, the FAA on Friday said stated operators of Boeing 787s would be required to take additional precautions when landing on wet or snowy runways at airports where 5G C-band service is deployed. The directive is estimated to affect 137 aircraft in the U.S. and 1,010 worldwide, according to the FAA.

RELATED: Airlines for America Pushes Emergency Petition to Delay 5G Service Initiation Near U.S. Airports