AT&T and Verizon are refusing to call for delays in the release of 5G for fear of aviation safety
AT&T and Verizon on Sunday rejected a request from US authorities to delay the release of 5G wireless cables, which are set to begin this week, over concerns about disrupting aviation technology.
A letter, co-authored by US telecoms officials John Stankey and Hans Vestberg, is fueling tensions between US companies and regulators over fears within the aviation industry that 5G services could disrupt high-tech devices that need to take off and go down. flight. .
Both sides have been reviewing 5G transmission plans, which were scheduled for December 5, but agreed to delay for one month when further security monitoring could take place.
On Sunday, Stankey and Vestberg offered an idea for AT&T and Verizon to continue their 5G operations this week but for six months have taken over so-called airports, similar to what happened in France.
“The laws of physics are similar in the United States and France,” officials wrote, adding that companies together spent more than $ 80bn to purchase 5G spectrum from the government and billions more to join them.
He objected to the government’s efforts to re-examine the potential disruption of flight altitudes – measuring the length of an object – in November 2021, about ten months after the 5G commercial closed.
The contents of this letter have already been reported in The Wall Street Journal.
The company’s comments come in response to a request by Friday a U.S. department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration to request telecom carriers to delay their release on January 5 for another two weeks.
“Failure to obtain a response by January 5 will force the United States Airlines to take action to protect the safety of travelers,” wrote United States Secretary of Transport Pete Buttigieg and FAA director Steve Dickson on December 31. Doing so. “Causing massacres and massacres. Unlawful disruption when flights to other cities or flights are banned ”.
An FAA spokesman said on Sunday that the agency would review the statements made by telecom groups and that “US aviation safety standards will guide our actions”.
These new ideas also sparked another debate amid concerns that the two sides are far from agreeing on how to do so.
Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO alliance, wrote in a tweet On Sunday, AT&T and Verizon’s correspondence letter “shows that the parties are not following the same principles. The systems, both for pilots and telecoms, are not the same in the two countries”.
A Verizon spokesman said Sunday that, of the hundreds of daily flights between the US and France, “no airline has had FAA warnings about it, and there has been no direct suspension of US flights due to the use of these groups. “What’s the difference? No.”
Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr also said that the requested 5G services, which are sent to the so-called C-band spectrum, have already been established in more than 40 countries without disruption of aircraft.
DoT and FAA’s request for another 5G delay “is part of a crisis in some government agencies that do not agree with Congress’s decision to hold transparent decisions on the views of spectators,” he wrote in a letter to Secretary Buttigieg on Saturday.
“Anything less if wireless carriers will launch their C-band operations on January 5 following the FCC protocol then they are back to US leadership in 5G”, he added.
