Earlier this year, Verizon and AT&T delayed full C-band 5G deployments around select airports at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but that should be resolved by July 2023, the agency said this week.
"We believe we have identified a path that will continue to enable aviation and 5G C-band wireless to safely co-exist," Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen said in a statement. "We appreciate the willingness of Verizon and AT&T to continue this important and productive collaboration with the aviation industry."
The carriers were originally supposed to fully deploy their C-band networks in early December, but delayed that to Jan. 5 amid FAA concerns about interference with the altimeters used by commercial aircraft. By Jan. 2, though, the FAA said it needed to more fully investigate the risks of C-band 5G, and the carriers reluctantly agreed to create 5G "buffer zones" around 50 airports for at least six months.
The carriers will now "continue with some level of voluntary mitigations for another year"—or July 2023, the agency says. "After that time, the wireless companies expect to operate their networks in urban areas with minimal restrictions."
In the meantime, companies that operate regional aircraft with radio altimeters most susceptible to interference—Embraer, Boeing, Airbus, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries—must retrofit them with radio frequency filters by the end of 2022. "This work has already begun and will continue on an expedited basis," the FAA says.
In a statement, Craig Silliman, EVP and Chief Administrative Officer for Verizon, says that after "months of close collaboration with the FAA, FCC and aviation industry," the carrier "will lift the voluntary limitations on our 5G network deployment around airports in a staged approach over the coming months."
An AT&T spokesperson said it has "developed a more tailored approach to controlling signal strength around runways that allows us to activate more towers and increase signal strength.
"Though our FCC licenses allow us to fully deploy much-needed C-Band spectrum right now, we have chosen in good faith to implement these more tailored precautionary measures so that airlines have additional time to retrofit equipment," the spokesperson added. "We appreciate the FAA’s support of this approach, and we will continue to work with the aviation community as we move toward the expiration of all such voluntary measures by next summer.”
C-band is just one aspect of the 5G rollout in the US, and the big three carriers have been hard at work deploying it around the country. We'll have more on the status of their efforts in our Best Mobile Networks story next week. Until then, you can keep up with the latest 5G news here.