Boeing and Airbus warn US over 5G safety concerns

Bosses from the world's two biggest plane makers have called on the US government to delay the rollout of new 5G phone services. 

In a letter, top executives at Boeing and Airbus warned that the technology could have "an enormous negative impact on the aviation industry." 

Concerns have previously been raised that C-Band spectrum 5G wireless could interfere with aircraft electronics. US telecoms giants AT&T and Verizon are due to deploy 5G services on 5 January. 

"5G interference could adversely affect the ability of aircraft to safely operate," said the bosses of Boeing and Airbus Americas, Dave Calhoun and Jeffrey Knittel, in a joint letter to US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 

The letter cited research by trade group Airlines for America which found that if the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) 5G rules had been in effect in 2019, about 345,000 passenger flights and 5,400 cargo flights would have faced delays, diversions or cancellations.

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TheBuckWheat comments:

Much overblown. The technical issue is that the edge of one of the 5G bands is next to the frequency allocated for radar altimeters used during low ceiling conditions on instrument approaches. And now that GPS, WAAS and ADS-B are universal for IFR operations of airliners, radar altimeters are backup not primary terrain avoidance. It is an issue that must be resolved by testing, not theory in part because radar altimeters were designed and certified decades earlier in a much less stringent RF environment. Their receivers a wide open and subject to adjacent signals.