Airlines, regulators set for talks on US 5G rollout
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will meet on Wednesday with telecom and airline industry officials on a push to retrofit and ultimately replace some aeroplane radio altimeters that could face interference from C-Band 5G wireless service. The altimeters give data on a plane's height above the ground and are crucial for bad-weather landings, but airline concerns about wireless interference from a planned 5G rollout led to disruptions at some US airports earlier this year. The FAA wants to use the meeting to establish "an achievable timeframe to retrofit/replace radar altimeters in the US fleet," according to a previously unreported letter from the FAA's top aviation safety official Chris Rocheleau. It also asked aviation representatives "to offer options and commit to actions necessary to meet these objectives." Major airlines group, Airlines for America, declined to comment ahead of the meeting. AT&T and Verizon Communications voluntarily agreed in January to delay until July 5 switching on some wireless towers and depowering others near airports just hours before the planned January 19 deployment, averting what airlines had warned would cause a potentially "catastrophic" aviation safety crisis. The delay did not prevent dozens of countries from canceling flights to the United States, casting the US regulatory system in an ugly light. The planned three-and-a-half hour roundtable meeting will also include a discussion on prioritising retrofits with antenna filters, which mitigate potential interference from 5G. Antenna filters are currently in production, officials said. A key question is how to determine which planes are most at risk of interference and should therefore get retrofitted first. (Reuters)