Jan 4, Reuters -- U.S. telecom companies and airlines have been fighting for weeks over the potential impact of 5 G wireless services on aircraft, in stark contrast to the rollout of new-generation services elsewhere, which has generally gone ahead without any new safety concerns.
Here is a background on the dispute, in which Verizon Communications and AT&T agreed on Monday to a two-week delay: https: www.reuters. com business aerospace-defense talks-continue near-deadline over-us 5 g-aviation safety-dispute - 2022 -- 01-03 in using newly acquired wireless spectrum, drawing back from a standoff that threatened to disrupt flights. The agreement promises to avert most if not all of the possible disruption to air travel from 5 G deployments.
The US auctioned mid-range 5 G bandwidth to mobile phone companies in early 2021 in the 3.7 -- 3.98 GHz range of the spectrum, known as C-Band, for $80 billion.
The Federal Aviation Administration FAA issued a warning in November of the risks of interference with flight equipment, and the U.S. aviation industry groups have stepped up their concerns.
There are concerns that there is not a big enough buffer from the frequencies used by the telecoms companies, as radar altimeters measure altitude in the 4.2 -- 4.4 GHz range.
The companies have been under pressure from the White House, airlines and aviation unions to delay the deployment due to concerns about 5 G interference with sensitive aircraft electronics like radio altimeters.
Radio altimeters help to minimize the risk of accidents or collisions by giving an accurate reading of the proximity to the ground. The readouts are used to facilitate automated landings and to help detect dangerous currents called windshear.
The service is faster if the frequency is higher in the spectrum. In order to get full value from 5 G, operators want to operate at higher frequencies.
The transition to 5 G means that there will be more traffic because of the C-Band spectrum auctioned in the United States.
The European Union set standards for mid-range 5 G frequencies in the 3.4 -- 3.8 GHz range in the wake of years of international discussions.
They have been auctioned and taken into use in 27 of the bloc's 27 member states so far.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, which oversees 31 states, said on December 17 that the latest discussion was specific to U.S. airspace. There has not been a risk of unsafe interference in Europe, it said.
AT&T and Verizon have agreed to adopt exclusion zones around many U.S. airports similar to those used in France for six months.
The spectrum used by France 3.6 3.8 GHz sits further away from the spectrum of 4.2 GHz used for radio altimeters than in the United States and France's power level for 5 G is much lower than what is authorized in the United States.
Verizon will not use spectrum that is closer than what France is using for several years.
In South Korea, the 5 G mobile communication frequency is 3.42 - 3.7 GHz band and there has been no reports of interference with radio wave since the commercialization of 5 G in April 2019.
5 G mobile communication wireless stations are in operation near airports, but there have been no reports of problems.
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, CTIA said wireless carriers in nearly 40 countries in Europe and Asia now use the C-Band for 5 G, with no reported effects on radio altimeters that operate in the same internationally designated 4.2 -- 4.4 GHz band. U.S. aircraft carrying thousands of U.S. citizens, land in these countries without incident, and without any concern by the FAA or foreign aviation regulators, each day it added. This is a classic dog that did not bark. The laws of physics are no different in the United States than in Europe or Asia. There was a warning that the safety precautions could disrupt up to 4% of daily flights without an agreement. An airline group said the issue could disrupt millions of passenger reservations and cause a lot of disruptions, and that the issue could cause thousands of flights to be cancelled or diverted every day. The interference issue would mean that at major U.S. airports in the event of bad weather, cloud cover or even heavy smog, United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby said last month.