Senate Takes Up Legislation To Hold 5G Network Builder Accountable

[Bill-Higdon]

FAA details 50 airports that will have 5G buffer zones

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday disclosed a list of 50 U.S. airports that will have buffer zones when wireless carriers turn on new 5G C-band service on Jan. 19.

www.ksl.com

The list of airports https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-01/50 Airports with 5G Buffer.pdf

 

[TFF]

Yea. It would suck for all those CAT 2 and 3 landings to say flatten the plane.

The fallout is bending of rules to get jobs done. All pt 135 helicopters have to have radar alt, 3000 lb and over, and I know some FSDOs are making all their local 135 helicopters have them, ones under 3000 lb. I know of a few that are unusable in the air. Kind of hard to fly at night legally in a EMS helicopter with it not functioning. It’s called rule breaking. It’s in the helicopter and functional, but not useable, so don’t put yourself in a situation to need it, but you still have to have it. Even if it doesn’t work.

We gave up our 135; the Radar Alt ROI would never get payed off and have a friend who’s altimeter reeds off the chart all the time with 5 g. Our 135 was just a backup, the FAA did not like us not using it and they pressured us to give it up.

 

[rv7charlie]

That reinforces the 1st thing that occurred to me when I saw that '50 airports' thing. The ones that get protection are likely the ones that need it least, from a safety standpoint. Major hubs already have the most resources, the most guidance options, the most ground based human help, etc etc. I'd bet that the places where radar altimeters are most useful are where there's nothing there except a charted GPS approach. And where there's no actual airport at all, as would be the case in a lot of helicopter operations (accident scenes, hospital rooftop landing zones, etc).

This is shaping up to be one of those cases where the political contributors and their venals are overruling the safety wonks at FAA.

 

[Rhino]

...Major hubs already have the most resources, the most guidance options, the most ground based human help, etc etc...

But they get the most press.

 

[tspear]

That reinforces the 1st thing that occurred to me when I saw that '50 airports' thing. The ones that get protection are likely the ones that need it least, from a safety standpoint.

I read somewhere that the top 20 airports account for 50% of all commercial air traffic, and that the top 50 airports account for over 80% of commercial air traffic.
Since the FAA objection has been around affecting commercial air travel, I think focusing on those airports is reasonable.

What I have not seen anywhere is what the effect of 5G will be on helicopter ops; especially EMS. My understanding is that radar alt is now pretty much required for IFR ops. BWTDIK?

Tim

 

[Hot Wings]

BWTDIK??

Kind of nice to know it pops up on a Google as hit #5 after only 9 hours indicating HBA again has the internet search ranking of the old days.
But what is BWTDIK?!?

 

[tspear]

BWTDIK??

Kind of nice to know it pops up on a Google as hit #5 after only 9 hours indicating HBA again has the internet search ranking of the old days.
But what is BWTDIK?!?

but what the hell do I know

 

[Bill-Higdon]

Nothing about the EMS Helicopters

FAA Estimates 78% of US Planes Can Now Land At Airports With 5G C-Band - Slashdot

The FAA has announced that an "estimated 78 percent of the U.S. commercial fleet" have been cleared to land at airports with 5G C-band, even under low-visibility conditions. The Verge reports: The agency's statement comes after a week of controversy surrounding the rollout of AT&T and Verizon's...

mobile.slashdot.org

 

[Vigilant1]

It is interesting that much of the press coverage is painting this as a battle between the airlines + aircraft mfgrs on one side vs telecom on the other. Maybe those are the entities most directly affected today, but the friction/conflict only exists due to a grand failure by the US government (esp the FCC and FAA, now "helped" by the legislative branch). There's no escaping this: If an entity claims dominion to regulate use of the RF spectrum, this situation is then entirely at their feet. And it's not a partisan issue, it is quite bipartisan.

 

[Hot Wings]

What little of this I've seen on the TV news in the last couple of weeks is essentially the FCC saying "Other countries have been using the same system now for some time without any trouble. The FAA and the airlines should have upgraded their hardware long ago because they knew this was going to happen, but they are just being cheap."

My thought is: How are the US planes handling the 5G in other countries if the systems are identical - as claimed by the FCC guys I've seen. Do the airlines in fact have newer compatible hardware for international flights?

Those of us that barely know the difference between AM and FM have little chance to know who is 'right'. Some basic facts of the particular system(s) would help?

 

[Wanttaja]

My thought is: How are the US planes handling the 5G in other countries if the systems are identical - as claimed by the FCC guys I've seen. Do the airlines in fact have newer compatible hardware for international flights?

One thing I saw says the US implementation uses twice the power and orients the antennas more skyward.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Vigilant1]

The FAA still has planes that periodically validate ground-based navaids (localizers, glideslope, etc). Did they/could they do similar validation flights with aircraft fitted with representative radar altimeters at fields near these 5G towers? Live tests with helicopters near these towers? If the power/antenna config (gain) of the approved US telecom equipment is different from the equipment elsewhere, then a live field test/validation program seems warranted, rather than turning airline revenue flights and helicopter EMS flights into de facto test flights.

 

[TFF]

Looks like Europe is using lower frequencies than the US, further away from the radio alt. So it’s not apples to apples.

 

[Bill-Higdon]

Looks like Europe is using lower frequencies than the US, further away from the radio alt. So it’s not apples to apples.

That's it exactly

 

[Hot Wings]

So the FAA talking heads I see on TV are not getting their facts straight..........The systems ARE different.
The next questions are:
Is there existing aircraft hardware that IS compatible with the US 5G system?
If so then it seems this is just a battle between two deep pocket entities that don't want to turn loose of $$s and we got stuck in the middle?
If not then we have a real problem?
Have the foreign airlines upgraded to handle the US 5G and if not are they having real world problems here in the US?

 

[Vigilant1]

The US telecoms are apparently using the freq in exactly the way they said they would when they bought it. Why the >heck< was the frequency sold to them without first being sure (live tests) that there would be no problem, or that mitigation methods (e.g better freq/spacial discrimination on radar altimeters?) were put in place.
If telecoms can't use the freq they bought, I'd expect a very big lawsuit.

 

[BJC]

Why the >heck< was the frequency sold to them without first being sure (live tests) that there would be no problem, or that mitigation methods (e.g better freq/spacial discrimination on radar altimeters?) were put in place.

Keep in mind that you are referencing career bureaucrats and their political appointee bosses.


BJC

 

[tspear]

The US telecoms are apparently using the freq in exactly the way they said they would when they bought it. Why the >heck< was the frequency sold to them without first being sure (live tests) that there would be no problem, or that mitigation methods (e.g better freq/spacial discrimination on radar altimeters?) were put in place.
If telecoms can't use the freq they bought, I'd expect a very big lawsuit.

Ok, this was how it was explained to me by a paper pusher who works for DoD.
The rules for the FCC assume a certain product longevity for civilian devices and another number for DoD. In this case, the frequencies in question are marked as civilian, so they assume a product life of roughly five years. The FCC announced the intention to use this band in 2017, therefore all civilian equipment should have rolled over by now.
As most on this board know; that is NOT how avionics work, we have equipment that often have a twenty or thirty year life from certification with design starting five to ten years previously. The FCC fails to grasp this basic concept, they just say we should upgrade the avionics; and that the standard for equipment life is a smartphone.

So basically, the FCC failed to listen to the FAA, and then the FCC got upset when the FAA basically stated we are blocking use of the equipment. If the FCC wants to allow you to depend on said equipment without 100% guarantee, then the FCC can assume all liability. this did not go over well with the FCC. But they screwed up, in a big way. Further the FCC treated the differences from 5G in Europe and Japan as footnotes. Failing to grasp that both Europe and Japan created dead zones around airports until they could gather the data, and the dead zones are much larger than even the FAA has proposed here where the FCC has authorized power levels over two times stronger than allowed in Europe and Japan.

Tim

 

[TFF]

What is being used on the European frequencies in the US?

 

[trimtab]

The guard bands are twice as large for the CE standards than the FCC allowed for 5G here. The CE standard used the EASA testing to show that power levels at the frequencies nearer the guard bands needed to be lowered and the antennae needed to be angled downward more to provide full compatibility with existing nav equipment.

The FAA knew this. The FCC knew this. Neither coordinated a solution for the US.

The claims that "5G is working in Europe just fine, and isn't a problem in he US" is willful ignorance. The differences are there, and may or may not be meaningful. It's the job of the FAA to be well ahead of these things. They failed. It's the job of the FCC to follow its own rules on guard bands. They failed.

The CE and EASA will replace the FCC and FAA as the leading international promulgating body for rational, effective regulatory frameworks and standards moving forward. The FCC and FAA fell behind decades ago, and the world is kind of fed up with waiting for them to sober up.