On Wednesday, the US telephone companies AT&T and Verizon are expected to enable new frequencies of the 5G network (the so-called C-band) throughout the country, which should make the 5G connections already in use faster and more efficient. However, the activation is contested by many American airlines, according to which it risks interfering with the instrumentation of airplanes and having significant repercussions on the transport of people and goods.
The introduction of the new service had already been postponed to the beginning of the year in agreement with the telephone companies, according to which there are no safety problems, but now the postponement limit is about to expire: some of the best known airlines have asked the authorities national that the C band is not implemented near the busiest airports to avoid “catastrophic” consequences.
The Airlines for America association, which brings together major airlines such as American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, has reported that the introduction of the new 5G network near airports could interfere with some safety devices on board many aircraft. In particular, it would risk making the altimeters, that is the instruments that measure the distance of planes and helicopters from the ground, malfunction, complicating the landing procedures, especially in case of poor visibility and bad weather. According to the airlines, with the new network, thousands of aircraft are therefore at risk of “staying on the ground” or not being able to return safely to the United States, further aggravating the crisis in global trade caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The frequencies of the C band, which are between 3.7 and 4.2 GHz, are not the same as those used by aircraft instrumentation, but they are very close. This would be sufficient, according to the airlines, to cause the risk of interference.
The association sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Federal Communications Commission, and the director of the National Economic Council, the office of the president of the United States that evaluates and assists the president on matters of an economic nature. In the letter, the association proposes an “immediate action to avoid significant operational inconvenience to passengers, shippers, the supply chain and the delivery of urgent medicines”.
Specifically, it calls for the new 5G not to be implemented within a radius of about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) around the country's major airports, at least until the FAA has determined that it can be used “safely without catastrophic disruption” .
United Airlines, for example, has estimated that the introduction of the new 5G will affect at least 15,000 flights and 1,250,000 its passengers a year. According to the company, there will be “significant restrictions” on the use of Boeing 787s, 777s and 737s especially at some of the busiest airports in the country, including those in Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Newark, near New York.
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Enabling C-band had already been postponed to early January, when AT&T and Verizon agreed to limit service in some “buffer” areas close to 50 of the country's busiest airports until January 19, pledging to work to reduce further the risks of interference in the next few months. The telephone companies have not commented on the alert launched by the airlines in these days, but in the past they had pointed out that the new 5G had already been implemented in about forty countries without causing problems.
On Sunday, the FAA determined that about 45 percent of US airlines' commercial aircraft can land safely even with the implementation of C-band and added that evaluations are underway to give further clearances by Wednesday. Meanwhile, some airlines have said they are considering canceling some international flights arriving in the US on Wednesday as a precaution.
For now, the possibility of interference between the 5G C-band and aircraft equipment has only been raised by US airlines, and not by those of other countries. In Italy the frequencies of the C band have been assigned to telephone operators, but they are relatively little used and so far ENAC, the body that deals with civil aviation, has not expressed concerns in this regard.
