Air travelers in the US. might experience delays and cancellations starting July 1st and you can blame it on 5G.
July 1st is less than a week away and that is important, according to The Wall Street Journal, because U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said at the end of last week that we could see some airline delays and cancellations starting on the first of the new month. It all comes down to the number of planes that had their altimeters upgraded so they will not face interference from 5G signals. Aircraft flying in the U.S. must have a retrofitted altimeter or face being grounded in bad weather
While the deadline for commercial jets to retrofit the altimeters doesn’t come until February 2024, by July 1st planes not certified to fly when near C-band 5G signals will not be allowed to land under certain low-visibility situations. The altimeter measures the distance that an aircraft is off the ground making it an important tool when landing under inclement weather conditions. After T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint in 2020 gave the carrier mid-band holdings in the 2.5GHz band, it became apparent that building a mobile 5G network around mid-band, like T-Mobile was doing, was the way to go. That’s because high-band signals do not travel far and are easily blocked by trees, signs, and buildings. So Verizon and AT&T together spent $68 billion to obtain mid-band spectrum licenses during an FCC auction, but eventually discovered that some of the C-band frequencies interfere with the altimeters on commercial jets.
