AT&T, Verizon to delay 5G due to air safety concerns: US regulators

Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon agreed to propulsion backmost deployment of a caller 5G frequence set to let clip to code aerial information concerns, US regulators said Thursday.

The 2 companies volition "voluntarily pause" the commercialized rollout "to further measure immoderate interaction connected aviation information technologies," the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission said successful a associated statement.

The 2 companies had planned to statesman utilizing the 5G web connected December 5, aft spending tens of billions of dollars to acquisition licenses.

But aviation regulators person disquieted astir the imaginable interference of the signals with formation information equipment.

The agencies pledged "to coordinate intimately to guarantee that the United States keeps gait with the remainder of the satellite successful deploying next-generation communications technologies safely and without undue delay."

The FAA connected Tuesday issued a peculiar bulletin to aircraft manufacturers and vigor altimeter manufacturers recommending investigation of imaginable interference astatine the 3.7 to 3.8 Ghz levels, arsenic good arsenic astatine frequencies betwixt 4.2 and 4.4 GHz.

Airlines should alert pilots to the "potential degradation" of safety systems "dependent upon vigor altimeters," the FAA said.

"There person not yet been proven reports of harmful interference owed to wireless broadband operations internationally, though this contented is continuing to beryllium studied," the FAA said.

AT&T said it would propulsion backmost deployment to January 5.

"It is captious that these discussions beryllium informed by the subject and the data," the institution said successful statement. "That is the lone way to enabling experts and engineers to measure whether immoderate morganatic co-existence issues exist."

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© 2021 AFP