The airlines fear possible interference from 5G and the sensitive aircraft electronics.
(Photo: Reuters)
Washington In the dispute over the security of 5G in the aviation industry, the two largest aircraft manufacturers have spoken out. Boeing’s CEO Dave Calhoun and Airbus CEO Jeffrey Knittel on Monday called on the US government to suspend AT&T and Verizon’s planned introduction of 5G cellular communications in the C-band spectrum on January 5th Postpone security concerns.
“5G interference could affect the safety of flight operations and have an enormous negative impact on the aviation industry,” said a joint letter from the top managers to US Secretary of Transport Pete Buttigieg, which the Reuters news agency was able to see on Monday.
The frequencies of the C-band spectrum partially overlap with those of radar altimeters as used in many aircraft. This can impair the functionality of the on-board instruments. The US aviation authority FAA had already published a directive at the beginning of December that classified the use of radar instruments in the vicinity of C-band networks as unsafe. Aircraft with the widespread technology are no longer allowed to land at airports with a C-band network.
As in Germany, network providers in the USA are already operating large-scale 5G networks. However, the fast C-band standard above 3.6 gigahertz is not very widespread. The ranges of the 5G antennas are very small in this spectrum, but they offer extremely high transmission speeds above one gigabit per second.
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The C-band standard should therefore be used primarily in metropolitan areas such as large city centers, where many people will be transferring large amounts of data at the same time in the future.
Large airports, especially close to the city center, would be a potential area of application for the faster network, which is also less prone to overloading than earlier standards.
The introduction of 5G has already been postponed
AT&T and Verizon had already postponed the introduction of the new networks by one month to January 5, 2022 as part of these security concerns. During this time, solutions should be implemented that should minimize the overlap of radio frequencies and thus dangers to flight safety. The measures now apparently do not go far enough for the aircraft providers.
Cellular Association CTIA said 5G was safe and accused the aviation industry of fueling fear and twisting facts. The US Pilots Association said Monday that the discussion was at a dead end. “This is a big problem for passengers, freight forwarders and the American economy.”
With material from Reuters
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