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Airlines Clamor for Clarity on Altimeter Upgrades for 5G
The potential for 5G signal interference with radio altimeters in airplanes flying into and out of U.S. airports continues to alarm airlines around the world, as the Federal Aviation Administration refuses to budge from what the industry calls arbitrary deadlines for upgrades to cockpit avionics despite the absence of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). (www.ainonline.com) Plus d'info...
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You have it all backwards. Quoting from the article: "The issue centers on the close proximity of the frequency bands in which 5G and the altimeters operate. Commercial aviation radio altimeters operate in the 4.2 to 4.4 GHz range, while 5G signals fall within the 3.7 to 3.98 GHz range, part of the C-band. The problem potentially arises in cases of radio altimeters’ “bleed over” into 5G networks’ part of the spectrum."
So in other words it's the radio altimeter manufacturers who made equipment that operated outside their allocated spectrum, crosses not only into the buffer between the bands but *across* the buffer into 5G spectrum.
This has been a known issue for *years* and the airlines have attempted to quash other rightful users of their defined spectrum rather than directly addressing the engineering issues that underlie the issue.
So in other words it's the radio altimeter manufacturers who made equipment that operated outside their allocated spectrum, crosses not only into the buffer between the bands but *across* the buffer into 5G spectrum.
This has been a known issue for *years* and the airlines have attempted to quash other rightful users of their defined spectrum rather than directly addressing the engineering issues that underlie the issue.
Equipment in planes meets technical requirements that were codified in a different radio environment from the one with C band 5G. It is not the altimeter manufacturers, nor the aircraft operators that changed the environment. It seems entirely unjust for the air travel sector to be burdened with fixing the problem. If the telecoms want to make the radio environment dirty and hostile, they should pay for making other C band user's equipment robust to their interference - they are culpable for instigating the problem.