By B.N. Frank
Opposition to 5G has been and continues to be worldwide due to numerous safety issues associated with the controversial technology. This has limited, slowed, and/or stopped deployment, including near airports in the U.S. (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and India (see 1, 2) due to significant interference issues with aviation equipment. In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) is giving airlines another year to correct this issue. Happy flying!
From Ars Technica:
FAA giving airlines another year to fix altimeters that can’t handle 5G signals
About 1,000 planes have altimeters listening to signals in the wrong frequencies.
The Federal Aviation Administration will give airlines another year to fix or replace airplane altimeters that can’t filter out cellular transmissions from outside their allotted frequencies. In a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) released today, the FAA proposed a deadline of February 1, 2024, to replace or retrofit faulty altimeters, which are used by airplanes to measure altitude.
Out of 7,993 airplanes on the US registry, the FAA said it “estimates that approximately 180 airplanes would require radio altimeter replacement and 820 airplanes would require addition of radio altimeter filters to comply with the proposed modification requirement.” The total estimated cost of compliance is $26 million.
The requirement could finally end a dispute between the aviation and wireless industries, which has prevented AT&T and Verizon from fully deploying 5G on the C-Band spectrum licenses the wireless carriers purchased for a combined $69 billion. Airplane altimeters rely on a spectrum from 4.2 GHz to 4.4 GHz, but some cannot filter out 5G transmissions from the carriers’ spectrum in the 3.7-3.98 GHz range.
“Some radio altimeters may already demonstrate tolerance to the 5G C-Band emissions without modification,” the FAA said. “Some may need to install filters between the radio altimeter and antenna to increase a radio altimeter’s tolerance. For others, the addition of a filter will not be sufficient to address interference susceptibility; therefore, the radio altimeter will need to be replaced with an upgraded radio altimeter.”
“Erroneous system warnings” pose a problem
The FAA said it “expects erroneous system warnings due to a malfunctioning radio altimeter to lead to flight crew becoming desensitized to system warnings. Such desensitization negates the safety benefits of the warning itself and can lead to a catastrophic event.”
The FAA had said in June 2022 that airlines must replace or retrofit faulty altimeters “as soon as possible.” But the notice issued today said February 1, 2024, “is the date the FAA has determined to be as soon as reasonably practical, consistent with FAA policy.”
The FAA will take public comment on its new proposal for 30 days before finalizing it. A Bloomberg report quoted lobby group Airlines for America as saying that airlines “are working diligently to ensure fleets are equipped with compliant radio altimeters, but global supply chains continue to lag behind current demand. Any government deadline must consider this reality.”
The proposed rule would affect airplanes operating under Part 121 certificates. Those certificates are for carriers with scheduled air service, which generally includes “large, US-based airlines, regional air carriers, and all cargo operators,” the FAA says.
“To minimize the number of erroneous system messages and the unsafe condition they produce, the FAA is proposing to require all airplanes operating under part 121 meet the PSD [power spectral density] performance curve to operate in the contiguous US after February 1, 2024,” the notice said.
Between now and the 2024 deadline, airplanes continuing to use faulty altimeters have to follow some limits during landings. A December 2021 Airworthiness Directive “prohibit[ed] certain operations requiring radio altimeter data when in the presence of 5G C-Band interference.”
Old altimeters “ignore assigned spectrum boundaries”
The Federal Communications Commission in February 2020 approved mobile use in the C-Band after considering complaints from the airline industry. The FCC concluded that harmful interference to altimeters was unlikely to occur “under reasonable scenarios” because of the 220 MHz guard band between 5G and altimeter operations and power limits the FCC required for C-Band transmissions.
But airlines weren’t prepared for the C-Band launches originally scheduled to begin in December 2021. AT&T and Verizon agreed to a nationwide delay for about six weeks and to limits on deployment near airports. The deployment limits around airports were initially set to expire in July 2022, but carriers later agreed to maintain some limits in the airport areas until July 2023.
Altimeters were originally designed decades ago when nearby spectrum bands only contained low-power operations, such as satellites. “This led the early designers of the altimeters to decide they really could ignore their assigned spectrum boundaries, and as a result they allow transmitted energy far outside their band into the receiver,” expert Dennis Roberson explained at a Congressional hearing in February 2022.
The altimeter problems spurred the FCC to launch an inquiry into poorly designed wireless devices that receive transmissions from outside their allotted frequencies. The inquiry could result in new regulations for wireless receivers; the FCC has traditionally imposed limits on transmitters only.
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Of course, 5G interference issues are not isolated to aviation equipment and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been aware of this. In 2020, utility companies and associations filed lawsuits against the agency for not protecting utility infrastructure from potential electrical interference issues with 5G (see 1, 2). Telecom provider, SpaceX has stated that Dish’s 5G satellites will cause interference issues affecting Starlink satellite service. DirecTV and RS Submit have also warned about satellite interference issues. The Department of Defense (DoD) has also been trying to resolve potential 5G network interference issues with military radar. In August 2022, a bipartisan group of senators requested that the FCC reconsider harmful interference risks with associated Ligado’s network before allowing it to be activated. Fortunately in September, Ligado cancelled trial network plans, perhaps because of a report that also warned about interference. In October, another report revealed that the telecom industry was aware of “known RF challenges” with 5G as well!
Other widely reported problems regarding with 5G include poor service (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and major cybersecurity risks (see 1, 2, 3). Additionally, since 2017 doctors and scientists have been asking for 5Gmoratoriums on Earth and in space due to biological and environmental health risks (see 1, 2, 3, 4). Since 2018 there have been reports of people and animals experiencing symptoms and illnesses after it was activated (see 1, 2. 3, 4, 5). In 2019, telecom executives gave U.S. congressional testimony that they had NO indpendent scientific evidence that 5G is safe and the majority of scientists worldwide oppose deployment. Some researchers have also warned that activation may be contributing to COVID-19 infections as well as hundreds of thousands if not millions of bird deaths!
Activist Post reports regularly about 5G and other unsafe technologies. For more information, visit our archives and the following websites:
- Americans for Responsible Technology
- Environmental Health Trust
- Physicians for Safe Technology
- Wireless Information Network
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