According to a recent letter sent to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the CEOs of several major airlines expressed concern that 5G could cause interference with systems on airplanes.
The letter was sent just as AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) were preparing to roll out 5G C-band service across the country, according to the company.
As seen in this video clip from “Editorial” on Motley Fool Live, which was broadcast on January 18, Fool.com contributor John Bromels discusses the letter’s contents and what it could mean for the future of 5G technology.
John Bromels (John Bromels): Here’s what’s going on: tomorrow, Wednesday, AT&T and Verizon, which have essentially purchased the majority of the C-band spectrum for 5G deployment, are scheduled to begin deploying C-band 5G service.
This is happening tomorrow, Wednesday. There are some who are not happy about this because airline CEOs expressed their displeasure in a letter sent Monday to the heads of the FAA and FCC, as well as other officials, claiming or warning that this could result in an unprecedented number of cancellations.
They predicted that it could result in the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights and the non-arrival of hundreds of thousands of passengers and that it could be an unprecedented catastrophe in the airline industry’s history.
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Why? In fact, it has been discovered that the 5G spectrum, specifically the bandwidth that it employs, may cause interference with some radio altimeters (which are of course the devices on airplanes that tell the plane how high it is above the ground)
and other systems due to the fact that those radio altimeters, particularly in older planes, operate on bandwidths that are similar to the 5G spectrum.
As a matter of course, they assert, the airline CEOs claim that they were aware that some older planes might have to be grounded while they worked to resolve the situation. However, they are now claiming that the 5G rollout will have a much greater impact on the fleet and that the entire U.S. air fleet than they had previously anticipated.
They are requesting that 5G technology be implemented. However, they must not deploy it anywhere within two miles of any airport, regardless of where they are.
Now, obviously, or perhaps not necessarily any airport, but airports that were identified as significant by the FAA in a specific meeting that they held a couple of weeks ago are included in this category.
Some buffer zones around 50 major airports across the United States have already been agreed upon by Verizon and AT&T. In response to airline requests, they have already delayed the 5G deployment by two weeks.
They have worked out with the FAA and the FCC how they will maintain those buffer zones, and they have given the airlines a little bit more time to figure out how they will work around any disruptions that may result from this.
However, airline CEOs argue that this is insufficient and that they require either a larger buffer zone around more airports or another delay in the rollout of 5G technology.
At this point, AT&T and Verizon have not specifically responded to this letter, but they have stated that in other countries where 5G has been implemented, none of the aforementioned measures have been necessary. We haven’t figured out exactly what is going to happen yet.
Of course, this letter was sent or posted online on a federal holiday, and we’re only a few hours into the workday today, so perhaps we’ll hear back from Verizon, AT&T, or the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, or the Department of Transportation, which was one of the recipients of this message.
However, it is noteworthy that this document has been signed by every major CEO in the U.S. passenger airline industry, including the CEOs of Delta, Southwest, Spirit Airways, and JetBlue, to name a few examples.
Actually, don’t quote me when it comes to spirit. Spirit, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery to me. I’d have to look into it.
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Whiteman: I don’t believe Spirit is a perfect A for A match. Possibly, they have an opinion, but I don’t believe they were included in that letter. But yes.
Bromels: That’s right. However, American, United, Hawaiian, and Alaskan are all signatories to this agreement.
