ATLANTA — Just as a major new telecommunication upgrade was set to be rolled out this week, the airline industry stepped in to raise its objections over how the technology could bring "chaos" to air travel.
Obviously, flight safety is not something most people want to mess around with, so the industry's warnings are not generally taken lightly.
Verizon and AT&T, the two principal telecommunications companies that were set to roll out the technology this week, have said that for now what they can do is hold off on sending their 5G signals live near airports, alleviating immediate concerns.
RELATED: Yes, 5G can interfere with airplanes, but it’s unclear whether it will cause ‘harmful interference’
The issues here between the 5G technology and altimeters on airplanes - gauges that basically tell pilots how high in the air the plane is - are not something many of us are well-versed in.
So 11Alive's La'Tasha Givens spoke to Bill Lawton, an expert with the Georgia Tech Research Institute, to get a sense of why this suddenly became a controversy:
What is 5G and how does it work?
"So 5G is obviously the next generation after 4G mobile connectivity technology.
"There's a number of advancements in 5G - first and foremost 5G gives more data faster than previous generations.
"But on top of that it's also built to be able to connect millions of devices - internet of things - sensors to enable anything from smart cities, smart agriculture, bringing capability to really start to tap into beyond (wireless utility) of just you and I walking around with mobile phones.
"And the third kind of main use case is lower latency communications, and very reliable communications. In that sense, it can also be used for more advancements in something like telemedicine - where there's currently a kind of robot surgery where a doctor can be in the room adjacent to the patient operating, but with ultra-reliable low latency communications that doctor could perform that same thing from a remote location... also maybe enabling what they're calling Industry 4.0 - smart warehouses that provide real-time inventory tracking, or smart manufacturing where a lot more advanced automation can be brought on board. So there's a lot of important industries that can start to benefit from mobile communications."
What will 5G do?
"5G was designed to operate in many different frequencies than legacy cellular technology. So it operates in many more frequency bands, so over time it will replace 3G and 4G at the frequencies they were operating, but what we're seeing now with the airlines becoming interested is 5G coming online in what's called the C-Band which is about 3.5 gigahertz.
"5G can operate in much higher frequencies as well - those haven't gone live yet, but those frequencies are what's referred to as Millimeter Wave which is up in the 20 gigahertz, up to 50 gigahertz regions.
"But as you move up in frequency, generally there's more spectrum that's gonna be available, so what that means is if you already own a 5G phone and you're operating in a 2-gigahertz band you may be getting 10-20 megabits (of data) per second, but if you operate on 5G in this 3.5-gigahertz band you may be able to get 100-150 megabits per second. And once operators start utilizing the Millimeter Wave spectrum you could start seeing gigabit per second or greater speeds."
So it means our phones and laptops connected to 5G can download a lot faster?
"Yes just because there's more spectrum generally available the higher frequency that you go, so that's why operators - that's their interest in the C-Band right now that they're trying to turn on."
What's this got to do with planes?
"So it's nothing that is unique to 5G as a technology, it all comes down to what frequency the 5G services are operating in, the 5G devices are operating in. So the bands that Verizon and AT&T have licensed are in the upper 3-gigahertz region, 3.7, 3.8-gigahertz. The aircrafts, they have radar altimeters that basically operate around 4.2 gigahertz, so there's a region in between and that region is there to provide separation so that energy from one service doesn't affect the other service.
"But of course when we talk about airlines the main consideration is safety, so you'd really wanna avoid a 5G system that's negatively interfering with the aircraft altimeters."
Is that a very large concern?
"I've recently seen reports that this is kind of a multifaceted concern - if we were strictly talking about modern altimeters that are properly maintained then the concern is negligible.
"But one of the main concerns is there could be a number of old technology altimeters that are still operating, and those old altimeters may not be operating up to their specifications - so they may be more susceptible to this 5G energy.
"Even with this multi-megahertz guard band, there still may be enough energy that bleeds over that those kinds of older, maybe malfunctioning altimeters may be susceptible to that interference.
"But you know I haven't seen a claim that this is a definitive issue. It's a concern and basically, they want time to continue to test it to make sure that these 5G waveforms operating in the bands that have been licensed by the operators don't negatively impact these altimeters and the functions of the aircraft.
"I don't think that there's a serious concern, but when you talk about equipment - that the operating condition of certain altimeters may not be known in all cases. So I'm not an aircraft expert, I'm not aware of - I know they are maintained on a very regular basis, but exactly which systems are tested on a regular basis and how they're tested, that's not something I'm familiar with.
"But when you talk about systems that have been in operation, and if they've been operating out of their designed band but there was no other interference present. Let's say last year they were operating normally and now all of a sudden you bring on this new energy, this new band, and I think it's just an abundance of caution that's being used to make sure that safety is a paramount concern."
Can telecom companies position their towers so it's not an issue at airports?
"The distance will definitely make a difference.
"And by the way, there have been guidelines put in place for how cell towers should be constructed and operated that are located in the vicinity of airports - so the power of the 5G towers, distance of the tower to the airport, those both are factors but also the orientation, of how the antennas are oriented with respect to where the airports are. You can have a tower relatively close to an airport but the antenna could be radiating away from the airport as opposed to into the airport, so those are definitely all factors."
Why did this pop up now?
"My understanding is that the FAA was looking into this back in 2019, starting in 2019, so there's been multiple years, maybe three years time to allow for testing of this and even allow for upgrades and replacements of legacy altimeters, so how it got to the 11th hour I'm not sure. But there definitely seems to have been time for adequate preparation."
Atlanta's airport says it's not an issue for them, does that check out to you?
"So I don't have direct knowledge of Hartsfield Airport's statement but it could be that they have reviewed the altimeters on the aircraft operating there, it could be that they have done a deeper dive into the 5G emissions nearby their airport that they've gone out and done those studies and they feel there's a safety level there that's sufficient."
(Editor's note: Here is the statement from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on the 5G issue.)
Hartsfield-Jackson will not be impacted at this time as 5G C-band is not being deployed near the Airport. ATL officials will work with neighboring jurisdictions to monitor and address the possible expansion of 5G cell towers adjacent to the Airport. Diversions at other airports caused by the implementation of 5G may create increased traffic at ATL, but those impacts are expected to be minimal and will be handled by the Airport’s operations teams.