US airlines issue dire warning ahead of 5G rollout

[SugarDaddy1]

In a letter sent Monday to Biden administration officials, a group of airline CEOs stressed that the forthcoming C-Band 5G deployment would ground "huge swaths" of the U.S. fleet and "could potentially strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas."

"Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will essentially be grounded," they said in the letter,*viewed by NBC News.

The airline executives stated plainly that the rollout could be accompanied by an aviation crisis the likes of which the country has never seen.

"To be blunt, the nation's commerce will grind to a halt," they stated plainly.

Source

 

[ll74]

From the report, it seems that the 5G C-Band, being used by ATT and Verizon, is the major concern. (not all the 5G spectrum being used)

The concern was that the airwave spectrum used by this new 5G service, known as the C-band, could clash with the signals used by radio altimeters.

The two carriers initially rejected the government’s request in early January and were planning to move forward, but they reversed course and announced the two-week delay. Both carriers have also promised to temporarily reduce the strength of their networks around airports to allow regulators to study potential aviation interference more closely.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ophic-disruption-5g-rollout-verizon-rcna12525

 

[oggbashan]

Gee, Daddy, Americans are just as bad at rolling out 5G networks as they are at elections.

40 other countries have managed to do it successfully. Maybe you should use Canada as a role model for 5G networks and elections.

There is a TV advert being shown in the UK which shows a family's 5G wifi being used to land an airliner...

 

[LupusDei]

Well, yeah, the problem the C-band. FCC sold up to 3.98gHz and allowed 2.5 times higher transmitting power limits than Europe, Japan and others, who also only cleared up to 3.7gHz, but U.S. operators also won't actually deploy higher than that for several years yet. There's also no requirement to point sector arrays downward a bit, like others had, but most real world implementations will likely be anyways (it mostly makes sense). Also, providers volunteered to hold the power down at first and not turn on some towers right in front of airport runways, but only temporarily.

Aircraft radar altimeters operate between 4.2gHz and 4.4gHz. That's the thingy that measures distance from the ground, real time at low altitudes. Absolutely necessary for poor weather landings, and nice for autopilot and pilot assist overall.

So what? 220Hz safety margin should be more than plenty, in twenty first century, right? For comparison, the mobile phone systems themselves operate with guard bands between in and out of 30-20Hz and less, transmitted and received on the same physical antenna. Actually, airliners aren't even required to turn the altimeter off while taxing on the ground, so, in a busy airport there can be literally dozens banging away in the same band unnecessary.

Actually, the last fact was, curiously enough, used as prerequisite to construct modeling of worst of worst case scenario where an ill placed cellular tower could actually provide the last bit of noise background to possibly come into safety margin of saturating and thus blinding altimeter of incoming plane at critical altitude. So yeah, it's nearly theoretically possible to force instrumental landing of a modern airliner to disengage.

However, U.S. is a special place, with as it turns out rather old fleets and "general" aviation. And there's all reason to believe there's rather sloppy equipment around with inadequate filtering. Including, somewhat possibly, medevac helicopters. Those could be noise levels affected, and almost anywhere, due to their flight profile. Even so, we talk about loss of function, not incorrect readings, unless those things are downright faulty, however ancient.

So the problem isn't completely made up, but certainly blown out of proportion and it's somehow the entirely wrong bunch that are squealing.

But the spectrum auction was 2018, and FCC greenlit the implementation plan in 2020. FAA started actually test and re-certifying actual altimeters... two weeks ago. Allegedly they have done 10% of active models covering 45% of planes and so far found no problems even against the totally hostile test case assumptions.

Yes, someone may potentially lose Cat III certification on their bird (as I understand, actually upgrading the ancient radar altimeters is rather wishful thinking).

 

[MadeleineSinha]

There is a TV advert being shown in the UK which shows a family's 5G wifi being used to land an airliner...

Not to be picky or owt but
It's for EE fibre broadband, not 5G
https://www.lbbonline.com/news/ee-m...plane-powered-by-ee-full-fibre-home-broadband

Edit
Damn, now I can never make another post

 

[oggbashan]

Not to be picky or owt but
It's for EE fibre broadband, not 5G
https://www.lbbonline.com/news/ee-m...plane-powered-by-ee-full-fibre-home-broadband

Edit
Damn, now I can never make another post

You're right. I'm wrong.

So now you can make more posts.

 

[JohnnySavage]

I don't understand anything in this thread.