Flights suspended, 5G rollout paused in America over frequency concerns
AT&T and Verizon will delay launching new mobile services near key airports after the nation's largest airlines said 5G would interfere with aircraft technology and cause massive flight disruptions.CEOs of the nation's largest airlines said interference with aircraft systems would be worse than they originally thought, making many flights impossible.The new high-speed wireless service uses a segment of the radio spectrum, C-Band, that is close to that used by altimeters, which are devices that measure the height of aircraft above the ground.AT&T and Verizon say their equipment will not interfere with aircraft electronics, and that the technology is being safely used in many other countries.However, the CEOs of 10 passenger and cargo airlines including American, Delta, United and Southwest say that 5G will be more disruptive than earlier thought because dozens of large airports that were to have buffer zones to prevent 5G interference with aircraft will still be subject to flight restrictions announced last week by the FAA.The telecoms, the FCC and their supporters argue that C-Band and aircraft altimeters operate far enough apart on the radio spectrum to avoid interference.They also say that the aviation industry has known about C-Band technology for several years but did nothing to prepare — airlines chose not to upgrade altimeters that might be subject to interference, and the FAA failed to begin surveying equipment on planes until the last few weeks.After rival T-Mobile got what is called mid-band spectrum from its acquisition of Sprint, AT&T and Verizon spent tens of billions of dollars for C-Band spectrum in a government auction run by the FCC to shore up their own mid-band needs, then spent billions more to build out new networks that they planned to launch in early December.In response to concern by the airlines, however, they initially agreed to delay the service until early January.