AT&T, Verizon Back Down Again in Implementing 5G

In the face of increased pressure from the airline industry – as well as The White House – telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon on Tuesday again relented with their implementation of 5G service.

The wireless carriers, which had already delayed the rollout for two weeks until today, Wednesday, January 19, now say they will limit the 5G wireless service near airports so as not to disrupt flights or interfere with airplane instrumentation.

The latest change comes as AT&T and Verizon faced mounting public concern not only from the airlines, but from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – whose objections to 5G put it in direct contrast with another government agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which supports the new high-speed service – as well as the travel industry in general.

The U.S. Travel Association issued a statement on Tuesday prior to the agreement saying, “The U.S. Travel Association is urgently calling on the U.S. government and mobile wireless carriers to delay the introduction of 5G wireless around affected airports until critical operational concerns can be resolved.”

The White House, which had worked behind the scenes for the most part, this time actively intervened and helped broker the deal, according to the Washington Post.

“(The agreements) avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, (while allowing more than 90 percent of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled” and “bring more high-speed internet options to millions of Americans,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

Biden has been a proponent of increasing wireless service, especially in rural areas of the U.S.

“Expanding 5G and promoting competition in internet service are critical priorities of mine, and tomorrow will be a massive step in the right direction,” Biden said. “My team has been engaging non-stop with the wireless carriers, airlines, and aviation equipment manufacturers to chart a path forward for 5G deployment and aviation to safely co-exist — and, at my direction, they will continue to do so until we close the remaining gap and reach a permanent, workable solution around these key airports.”

The airlines and the FAA said radio altimeters on planes, which help planes land in poor weather, could be susceptible to interference from the higher-speed service. The FCC argued that 5G has had successful rollouts all across Europe, but the FAA countered that this version that the wireless carriers plan to use in the U.S. is more than twice as fast and powerful than what was implemented overseas.

“At our sole discretion we have voluntarily agreed to temporarily defer turning on a limited number of towers around certain airport runways as we continue to work with the aviation industry and the FAA to provide further information about our 5G deployment, since they have not utilized the two years they’ve had to responsibly plan for this deployment,” AT&T said in a statement.