Have you been following the great 5G freakout? It's fascinating. Today is D-Day, when 5G towers using C-band spectrum finally begin operation around airports, and the airline industry is describing it with words like "catastrophic," "chaos," "devastating," and "incalcuable."
The basic problem is simple. The top end of the new 5G spectrum is close to the spectrum used by the altimeters on commercial aircraft. If 5G interferes with altimeter operation during bad weather, pilots could be misled about their altitude and end up plowing into the ground. If you saw Die Hard 2, it's something like that.
But wait. Europe has already ramped up 5G operation and everything is fine. Why are things worse in the US? There are three reasons:
- In Europe, the guard band between 5G and the altimeter band is 400 MHz. In the US it's only 200 MHz.
- European cell towers use lower power levels than US towers.
- The buffer zone around airports is bigger than it is in the US.
But wait again! Cell operators say this is all theoretical.
- Until 2023, carriers won't be using the full 5G spectrum. So in practice, the guard band will be 300-400 MHz or more for at least a year.
- Ditto. Carriers are transmitting at low power levels until at least July. In practice, this means that power levels are similar to those used in Europe.
- This is true, but it doesn't appear to be a huge problem.
The FAA is busily working to clear both airports and aircraft for operation, but they haven't finished up. The Boeing 787, for example, remains uncleared, as do many smallish airports. This only affects landings in bad weather, but even so an airline lobbying group says it could ground about 4% of all passenger and cargo flights.
So who's right? If 5G is allowed to power up on schedule, we'll find out by watching the sky for airplanes crashing into runways—or for lots of flights being grounded because the FAA won't clear them or pilots will refuse to fly them. If it's delayed yet again (the rollout has already been delayed twice), then we'll argue some more.
UPDATE: The day of reckoning has been postponed to Wednesday, and the cell carriers have agreed not to activate a certain number of towers near airports. This is a temporary solution that will presumably be revisited once the FAA has finished its analysis of all airports and all types of aircraft.
As a caller to the KKKlay Travis n' Kukk Sexton White Power Hour, I just need to laugh at another way the supposed Fake Chinese Bioweaponized Flu vaccine won't save you.
5G will broadcast through your phone to activate every microchip the vaccine implanted in your brain to promote obedience through Order 66, while at the same time the towers disguise next-gen Rothschild space lasers, the Secret Empire's final line of defense to take down Trump and John Kennedy, jr as they make their triumphal progress back to Camelot riding their golden airplane.
Thank you.
Finally, someone is talking sense on the Internet.
😂
Thanks for the summary.
Airlines are lying.
I think 5G is 50% hype but it's not a danger to airplanes.
These folks suggest the separation in Europe is 600 MHz not 400: https://leehamnews.com/2022/01/18/us-5g-roll-out-ignores-concerns-for-air-transport-safety/
FAA doesn't deal in theoretical in these situations. FAA treats theoretical problems as real problems until proven otherwise.
It's very curious. The one or two articles I've read about this situation cite fears of economy problems due to large numbers of grounded flights. Which I found a bit of a head-scratcher, because surely plane crashes are the real danger. Right? I'm guessing the airline spokespeople don't want to scare the public.
What you'll see if there is a problem is an increasing number of incident reports by pilots. You'll have to look at the FAA web site, a magazine like Flying or a site like avherald.com. The incidents themselves will seem minor: a missed landing, a go around, an unexpected response. Some responses won't even make it to the reportable incidence level. It will just be pilot's gossip. If something bad, like a crash or accident, actually does happen, this kind of stuff will come up in the NTSB forensic report.
That is, of course, if there is a real problem. It sounds like the phone companies are planning to start with European level, and therefore tested, buffering and power. Then, probably in about a year, they'll crank things up and cut the bandwidth buffer and increase the power. The idea is to start slowly and incrementally so that it is easy to give a sense of continuity. That way, when the frequency and intensity of any incidents rise, it will be hard to notice and any such notice easy to dismiss.
The best aviation-related site that I know of is maintained by NASA; it allows incident reporting by pilots, air-traffic controllers and others; and it’s searchable. It is an application of the ‘critical-incident’ technique developed by engineering psychologists (I am one, with experience in aviation and electric-generation including nuclear), which encourages anonymous reporting of incidents in which aircraft or plant safety or integrity was placed at risk, but a potential accident was avoided. Analysis of these incidents can lead to improvements in the respective systems that reduce risk going forward.
https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/search/database.html
i mean, have they not freakin tested this stuff?
From what understand, they have tested it a little and at levels several times higher than what will deployed they MAY have found issues with some old equipment. Instead of doing more testing to narrow down the issue or requiring airlines to update their defective equipment the FAA has spent the last couple of years complaining. The FCC has said either provide some evidence or we are going to allow the carriers to use the frequencies. The FAA seems to believe that's an unreasonable demand.
Have the FCC tell the wireless carriers to pony up for the aircraft upgrades if what they want to do affects them.
thanks
Well, let’s see, it’s safety of aircraft with 100 or more ‘souls on board’ (yes, that’s the phraseology) vs. fast movie downloads. Yeah, I say the FCC has the burden of proof.
And I’m with rick_jones, the wireless carriers should bear all the costs of testing & remediation.
I am no expert, but the data from radio altimeters are integrated into the function of many aircraft systems, and with the complexity of modern aircraft flight automation, it may take time to fully assess the risks. That said, the FAA and FTC had a year to figure this out and it looks like a typical government cluster fuck to me. Here is what the airline pilots association issued today:
http://www.alpa.org/resources/aircraft-operations-radar-altimeter-interference-5G
It would seem that while aircraft may have been cleared to operate, there may be procedural adjustments that are aircraft and airport dependant. These changes will likely increase pilot workload which is not a good thing.
A reprieve, with finger pointing: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna12525
Although: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2022/1/18/22890080/5g-flight-cancel-att-verizon-c-band-emirates-air-india-ana-japan
They're still trying to convince me that having my cellphone on during the flight is a problem. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure lots of folks have had their phones on (not airplane mode) in recent years with no issues.