Apparently, 10 US carriers have been trying to get the US government to delay the rollout of 5G near airport because it interferes with aviation technology.
The airlines have been trying to negotiate with telecommunication companies directly. Oddly (sarcasm), telecom companies seem unmoved by the fact that it may soon be difficult to move via air.
I am trying to wrap my brain around the idea that someone thought it was just fine to develop cell phone technology that makes it dangerous to land planes and roll it out globally. I’d blame Trump, but it must go back farther than that, knowing tech runways.
Another take: the 5G band will interfere with ground radar on the older planes, so they won’t know how close they are when landing. A serious issue, so why aren’t the 5G providers more civic-minded? The airlines had ample warning that it was coming, and dragged their feet on upgrading altimeters in the older planes. Even now, as they squawk about delaying the 5G roll-out, they will offer no time-table for when they will upgrade the older planes. Basically, they’ll stall as long as they can get away with, so the cell providers are ignoring them.
It’s not just so simple to swap something out. There is a somewhat lengthy (& expensive) certification process to upgrade components in commercial aviation.
According to Wikipedia, 5G was first introduced in 2016. That should have been plenty of time to retrofit vulnerable aircraft. And if not, it should have been plenty of time to fast-track a solution for a problem that the airlines are telling us could be extremely devastating.