FAA Administrator Steve Dickson testified Thursday before the House Transportation Committee on his agency’s efforts to ensure that planes remain safe as wireless companies turn on 5G networks. Disruptions to aviation have been minimal since the networks were rolled out last month, he noted.
The agency on Friday announced an agreement that will allow wireless carriers to activate more towers while also enabling more aircraft to operate at key airports, Inside Towers reported. “While we have avoided significant disruption to commercial aviation, we recognize that some communities and operations have been affected because we have not been able to fully mitigate interference risk for certain radio altimeters,” Dickson said, reported The Washington Post.
CTIA President/CEO Meredith Attwell Baker wrote in prepared remarks that the aviation industry relied on faulty data to stoke concerns about 5G. “Aviation interests primarily rely on a single industry study, but that study applied flawed methodology and implausible scenarios to claim interference,” she wrote. Baker asserted that evidence from other countries with similar 5G networks, combined with the initial rollout in the United States, shows the new technology presents no danger.
Aviation industry safety concerns about 5G to radio altimeters led to AT&T and Verizon twice delaying their 5G rollout and committing to three different sets of voluntary temporary measures. The CTIA executive said she was proud of how AT&T and Verizon handled the situation. “Despite all available real-world evidence—including existing C-band 5G networks operating abroad using the same frequencies with the same permitted power levels and with no reported incidents of interference to air traffic safety—AT&T and Verizon acted to allay public concern and to give the FAA and the aviation industry additional time to evaluate altimeter performance with 5G,” wrote Atwell Baker.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA), the top Republican on the aviation subcommittee, said the last-minute scramble had been an embarrassment and that federal agencies should have worked together earlier to ensure the new technology was safe. “There’s no excuse for us to be in this situation,” he said, reported The Post.
Committee Chair Peter DeFazio (D-OR) said in prepared remarks that former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai missed chances to fix the problems when the agency’s C-band rules were drafted. Pai said the concerns of the FAA and others in the aviation industry were “misplaced” and the FAA had multiple opportunities to express concerns. “They might not like the answer they got, but they certainly had a chance to have input.”
Atwell Baker, too, defended the agency’s C-band rules, writing that with “with sound science and good engineering, the FCC set strong rules to protect altimeters.” She called the agency’s C-band restrictions, including a 220 MHz guard band, “rigorous and significant.”
No FCC representative was at the hearing. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel was invited, but could not appear due to a conflict, according to Politico. She did meet with DeFazio and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) separately on Wednesday and had a productive discussion, “including on how to build on the progress to date so that 5G networks and aviation technologies can safely coexist in the United States,” according to a spokeswoman.
NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association, supported Attwell Baker’s testimony. Her words “made clear that the wireless industry and the FCC followed the science and real world usage of 5G services and the impact on aviation,” said NATE President/CEO Todd Schlekeway. He said the association “urges policy makers to continually work together to advance 5G services and maintain America’s global leadership in wireless telecommunications that have allowed for telework and telehealth services and many other technologies that have helped Americans cope with a global pandemic.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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