AT&T and Verizon back down in standoff with FAA, agree to 5G delay [Updated]

Replace at 11:20 pm ET: AT&T and Verizon reversed course on Monday evening, asserting that they agreed to the request for a two-week delay of their 5G rollouts on C-Band frequencies, in response to experiences from a number of information organizations. “At Secretary [of Transportation Pete] Buttigieg’s request, now we have voluntarily agreed to 1 extra two-week delay of our deployment of C-Band 5G providers,” an AT&T spokesperson stated, in response to CNN. “We additionally stay dedicated to the six-month safety zone mitigations we outlined in our letter. We all know aviation security and 5G can co-exist and we’re assured additional collaboration and technical evaluation will allay any points.”

Verizon additionally confirmed to information organizations that it agreed to the delay, regardless of each carriers rejecting the request from Buttigieg and the Federal Aviation Administration yesterday. Whereas the two-week delay applies nationwide, it is not clear whether or not AT&T and Verizon will conform to the FAA’s request for longer delays in areas surrounding airports.

Unique story as printed on January 3, 2022 at 2:50 pm ET follows:

AT&T and Verizon yesterday rejected a Federal Aviation Administration request to additional delay a 5G rollout on C-Band frequencies however stated they may undertake one of many world’s “most conservative” energy limits close to airports for six months after the deliberate January 5 deployment. That is along with different voluntary limits the carriers not too long ago introduced despite the fact that it has been nearly two years because the Federal Communications Fee decided that use of the spectrum shouldn’t intervene with correctly designed airplane altimeters.

“Particularly, for six months, till July 5, 2022, we’ll undertake the identical C-Band radio exclusion zones which are already in use in France, with slight adaptation to replicate the modest technical variations in how C-Band is being deployed within the two international locations,” the carriers stated in yesterday’s letter. “That method—which is without doubt one of the most conservative on this planet—would come with in depth exclusion zones across the runways at sure airports. The impact can be to additional scale back C-Band sign ranges by at the least 10 occasions on the runway or over the past mile of ultimate method and the primary mile after takeoff.”

The exclusion zones in France are 910×2100 meters, the letter stated. AT&T and Verizon stated they may use larger exclusion zones with “a further 540m on all 4 sides to accommodate” the upper energy ranges permitted within the US.

The carriers famous that “US plane presently fly out and in of France on daily basis with hundreds of US passengers and with the total approval of the FAA,” and that the “legal guidelines of physics are the identical in the US and France. If US airways are permitted to function flights on daily basis in France, then the identical working situations ought to enable them to take action in the US.”

In the meantime, a gaggle representing main airways despatched a letter to the FCC threatening a lawsuit and claimed that “hundreds of flights” may very well be diverted or canceled on daily basis as a result of interference from 5G transmissions. However the spectrum is already getting used for 5G in almost 40 different international locations, and the FAA admitted there are not any “confirmed experiences of dangerous interference” to altimeters.

Buttigieg on FAA’s aspect

The AT&T/Verizon letter was a response to a December 31 letter from FAA Administrator Steve Dickson and US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Dickson and Buttigieg requested AT&T and Verizon to delay all industrial C-Band service for one more two weeks, till January 19, and to attend for the aviation business to conduct additional evaluation earlier than deploying 5G on the C-Band close to airports.

AT&T and Verizon beforehand agreed to a one-month delay of the deployment that was initially scheduled for December 5, 2021. In yesterday’s letter, they objected that the brand new FAA/DOT request “asks that we conform to switch oversight of our firms’ multi-billion greenback funding in 50 unnamed metropolitan areas representing the lion’s share of the US inhabitants to the FAA for an undetermined variety of months or years.”

The FCC accredited 5G transmissions within the C-Band in February 2020, whereas requiring energy limits in addition to a 220 MHz guard band that can stay unused to guard altimeters. AT&T and Verizon then spent a mixed $69 billion to buy C-Band spectrum licenses from 3.7-3.98 GHz. The radio altimeters used to find out airplane altitudes depend on spectrum from 4.2 GHz to 4.4 GHz.

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The guard band is successfully even larger in 2022 as a result of carriers have stated they do not plan to deploy between 3.8 and three.98 GHz till 2023.

Airways plan to sue if FCC doesn’t act

Airways for America, a commerce group that represents the foremost US airways, filed an emergency petition on December 30 asking the FCC to cease C-Band deployment close to airports. The group stated if the FCC would not act by midday ET on January 3, the group “will likely be pressured to hunt judicial or different aid to keep away from the fast and unacceptable security dangers to its members’ operations from interference to radio altimeters.”

The emergency petition claimed that interference from the C-Band “will trigger irreparable hurt and jeopardize the operate of important plane security methods, which in flip threatens to divert or cancel hundreds of flights on daily basis, thus disrupting hundreds of thousands of passenger reservations, inflicting substantial disruptions for air crews, additional interrupting the U.S. and international provide chains, and eroding the protection margin that the business and the Federal Aviation Administration have labored so exhausting to attain.”

“A4A is enjoying silly video games, as a result of they waited till the FCC closed on Dec. 30 to file. Because the FCC was closed Dec. 31, and A4A says they may enchantment right this moment [Monday], this provides FCC no time to overview or reply to remain petition,” wrote Harold Feld, a telecom lawyer who’s senior VP of client advocacy group Public Information.

Six former FCC chairs final month criticized the FAA’s battle in opposition to C-Band deployment, saying that the “FAA place threatens to derail the reasoned conclusions reached by the FCC after years of technical evaluation and examine.”