5G news: Trump official says Biden refused to ‘side with science,’ prompting airline chaos
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump appointed FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr issued a statement Wednesday blaming the Biden administration for the chaotic rollout of Verizon and AT&T’s 5G wireless, which caused several airlines to cancel or delay flights in and into the US over fears that the technology would disrupt aircraft instruments.
“This is a clear failure of leadership. At any point in time, the White House could have stood up and sided with the science. They didn’t,” Mr Carr said.
Major international airlines have begun cancelling flights to the United States after the Federal Aviation Administration raised concerns about 5G wireless towers near airports.
Emirates, Air India, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways announced it would suspend flights after the Airlines for America trade group pressured the Biden administration over “catastrophic disruption” due to the scheduled 19 January rollout.
Emirates suspended flights into nine airports, including Boston, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, George Bush Intercontinental in Houston, Miami, Newark, Orlando, San Francisco and Seattle. It said it would continue flying into New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, the Los Angeles airport and Washington Dulles. Sir Tim Clark, the airline’s president, called the US government and the wireless companies “delinquent” and “irresponsible” for creating the conditions that allowed for the chaos to occur.
Wireless telecom giants AT&T and Verizon announced the activation of 5G towers near some US airports would be delayed for two weeks to resolve the differences.
The high-speed 5G internet uses so-called C-band frequencies close to those used by aircraft to measure their altitude, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warning potential interference could affect sensitive aeroplane instruments such as altimeters and significantly hamper low-visibility operations.
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How are AT&T and Verizon taking it?
Both wireless giants have dismissed the concerns of the airline industry.
The wireless industry trade group CTIA notes that about 40 countries have deployed the C-Band strand of 5G without reports of harmful interference with aviation equipment.
But AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg did offer to reduce the power of their 5G networks near airports, as France has done.
“The laws of physics are the same in the United States and France,” Stankey and Vestberg said in a letter Sunday to Buttigieg and Dickson. “If U.S. airlines are permitted to operate flights every day in France, then the same operating conditions should allow them to do so in the United States.”
Although they took steps to soothe the federal officials, the telecoms are still bickering with airlines, which have canceled more than 10,000 U.S. flights since Christmas Eve because of bad weather and labor shortages caused by COVID-19.
“While the airline industry faces many challenges, 5G is not one of them,” Vestberg said in a company memo Tuesday.
- Associated Press
Pilot union begs for 5G rollout to be halted at US airports: ‘This is no way to protect our safety record’
The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), a trade group for 61,000 pilots at 38 US and Canadian airline companies, has said that a two-week delay in activating 5G towers around airports is not enough to ensure a permanent solution.
The association said that the delay in rollout acknowledges the seriousness of aviation safety and operational risks. But airline passengers and shippers “deserve a commitment from the telecom companies not to launch the new 5G service at any of the airport locations identified by the FAA as being susceptible to 5G interference” till a permanent fix is found, it said.
It also criticised the Federal Communications Commission and telecom companies for ignoring red flags about 5G.
Namita Singh reports:
Pilot union begs for 5G rollout to be halted at US airports
Association also criticises telecom companies for ignoring red flags about 5G
ICYMI: President Joe Biden responds to 5G delay
January 18, 2022 Statement by President Biden on 5G Agreement
I want to thank Verizon and AT&T for agreeing to delay 5G deployment around key airports and to continue working with the Department of Transportation on safe 5G deployment at this limited set of locations. This agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90 percent of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled. This agreement protects flight safety and allows aviation operations to continue without significant disruption and will bring more high-speed internet options to millions of Americans. Expanding 5G and promoting competition in internet service are critical priorities of mine, and tomorrow will be a massive step in the right direction. My team has been engaging non-stop with the wireless carriers, airlines, and aviation equipment manufacturers to chart a path forward for 5G deployment and aviation to safely co-exist – and, at my direction, they will continue to do so until we close the remaining gap and reach a permanent, workable solution around these key airports.
What is 5G and how fast will it be?
What is all the fuss about around 5G?
At Mobile World Congress this year, Samsung showcased its 5G Home Routers, which achieved speeds of up to 4 gigabits-per-second (Gbps), according to PCMag. That’s 500 megabytes-per-second, which could let you download a 50GB game in under two minutes, or a 100GB 4K movie in under four minutes.
To give you an idea of how fast that is, the average internet speed in the US as of 2016 is 55 megabits-per-second, which translates to a woeful 6.5 megabytes-per-second.
The Independent’s Antonio Villas-Boas takes a closer look:
Your internet speeds will be insanely fast when 5G arrives
When the 5G wireless standard hits the mainstream, our home internet speeds have the potential to be so fast that we'll be downloading 4K movies, games, software, and any other large form of content at a fraction of the time we're used to.
Which flights have been cancelled due to the 5G rollout?
British Airways is among several airlines to ground flights to and from the US because of safety concerns over the deployment of 5G.
There are concerns that the telecom system could interfere with some types of radio altimeter – equipment critical for landings.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said: “Because the proposed 5G deployment involves a new combination of power levels, frequencies, proximity to flight operations, and other factors, the FAA will need to impose restrictions on flight operations using certain types of radar altimeter equipment close to antennas in 5G networks.”
The Boeing 777 aircraft – the leading long-haul, wide-bodied plane worldwide – is particularly affected.
British Airways has cancelled morning departures from London Heathrow to New York JFK, Chicago and Los Angeles. Some other services have had planned 777 aircraft replaced by other types.
You can find out which other routes have been impacted in Simon Calder’s report:
All the flights that have been cancelled due to 5G rollout
The Boeing 777 aircraft – the leading long-haul, wide-bodied plane worldwide – is particularly affected
ICYMI: 5G roll-out should be stopped everywhere while ‘adverse health effects’ are investigated, expert claims
Before the roll-out of 5G was slammed to a halt near airports, a health expert warned the entire network should be delayed to further investigate potential risks of “adverse health effects”.
Professor John William Frank from the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh claimed that no more transmitter towers should be built in order to limit public exposure while safety standards are reviewed.
In an opinion piece published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, Professor Frank wrote that the radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) emitted by 5G towers could cause negative “biological effects”
“A growing number of engineers, scientists, and doctors internationally [are] calling on governments to raise their safety standards for RF-EMFs, commission more and better research, and hold off on further increases in public exposure, pending clearer evidence of safety,” he wrote.
“It is highly likely that each of these many forms of transmission causes somewhat different biological effects – making sound, comprehensive and up-to-date research on those effects virtually impossible.”
The Independent’s Anthony Cuthbertson has the full story:
5G roll-out should stop while ‘suspected adverse health effects’ investigated, expert claims
University of Edinburgh professor calls for ‘a moratorium on exposure, pending adequate scientific investigation’
United customers advised to contact FCC over delays
According to Reuters journalist David Shepardson, United airlines have redirected disgruntled customers to contact the FCC amid ongoing 5G-related delays.
‘New: @United tells customers to contact @FCC over delayed flight’, he writes, with a screenshot of the United message attached.
Watch: Pilots association slams 5G launch as ‘reckless’
Allied Pilots Association spokesperson Dennis Tajer said on Tuesday suggested that the rollout of 5G near airports could put the lives of passengers at risk.
“This is reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s got to stop,” Tajer told the Today Show on Tuesday.
“Take a pause. This is about a cellphone signal, and we’re focused on protecting lives.”
Watch the full exchange below:
Explainer: Why 5G is causing so much disruption to the aviation industry
The airline industry is raising the stakes in a showdown with AT&T and Verizon over plans to launch new 5G wireless service this week, warning that thousands of flights could be grounded or delayed if the rollout takes place near major airports.
CEOs of the nation’s largest airlines say that interference from the wireless service on a key instrument on planes is worse than they originally thought.
AT&T and Verizon plan to activate their new 5G wireless service Wednesday after two previous delays from the original plan for an early December rollout.
The new high-speed 5G service uses a segment of the radio spectrum that is close to that used by altimeters, which are devices that measure the height of aircraft above the ground.
Read a full rundown of the issue here:
EXPLAINER: 5G and air travel
The airline industry is raising the stakes in a showdown with AT&T and Verizon over plans to launch new 5G wireless service this week, warning that thousands of flights could be grounded or delayed if the rollout takes place near major airports
Delay to 5G implementation goes far beyond aviation interference - experts suggest
The delay in the rollout of 5G is only the latest of several factors making companies cautious on deploying the next-generation wireless service in their operations, analysts and industry executives say.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, AT&T Inc. and Verizon postponed their 5G rollouts at the start of the month - and agreed to do so again on Tuesday. This is chiefly to give the Federal Aviation Administration more time to assess whether the new wireless signals interfere with flight control systems or not.
But even beyond the two-week delay, there is no dearth of reasons that companies are being careful on 5G. The cost and complexity of bringing out new infrastructure are holding back some, as well as the less-than-ringing demand, analysts say.
“There is a lengthy time frame between making the described airwaves available at auction, conducting the auctions, then actually deploying the infrastructure to support these airwaves,” Bill Menezes, a director at Gartner Inc, told the WSJ.
“What’s more, apps that might generate demand and drive 5G adoption are still in relatively early stages of development.”
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