Is the 5G meltdown another Y2K?

[marylander1940]

Major U.S. airlines warn 5G could ground some planes, wreak havoc | Reuters

OP note: the ripple effects across both passenger, cargo operations and workforce and the broader economy are simply incalculable.

[+ easygoingpal]

36 hours from yesterday...

Edited January 18, 2022 by easygoingpal

[mike carey]

I saw this story earlier today on OMAAT. Emirates, JAL and Air India have apparently already cancelled most US flights, Emirates stopping all destinations except LAX, IAD and JFK (for reasons that are not clear). There is a high degree of scepticism in the OMAAT commenter community, and that's to be expected. The issue seems to be mainly with B777 radar altimeters, and primarily for low visibility instrument landings, although it's not clear those are the only area of concern. The issue apparently is not with 5G per se but with the C-band spectrum being used for 5G deployed in the US. It remains to be seen whether this degree of caution is justified or excessive.

[RadioRob]

There are a few areas I've been confused about this:

• The date for this has been known for a LOOOONG time.  The deadline has been pushed already multiple times.  Why has this not been a higher priority for federal officials before now?  If this has been felt to be a problem, they should have been resolving this way before hand.  Specifically before the spectrum was released to the carriers.  The FAA literally will kill other activities from even being talked about but did not object until after the release of the spectrum?  Something is screwed up here.  
• I have not seen anywhere from the FAA or the airlines that clearly outline what they feel the problem is other than "it could be catastrophic".  Spell out exactly what the concern is.  
• Why is this a problem only within the US and not overseas where the 5G roll out has been happening long before this.  
• What exactly is the FAA/airlines asking for?  Originally I recall reading they needed a few extra days/weeks to wrap up some extra checks.  They need to clearly articulate a plan to resolving the issue.  If they cannot do this, there should be a TON of people at the FAA fired for incompetence.

Why are people from the FAA not literally locked a room with people from the carriers to figure this out with no one leaving the room till a game plan is worked out and agreed to from both sides.  

In a nutshell... spell out the damned who, what, where, when, why, and how.  Quit making excuses and figure it out.  

 

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

7 minutes ago, RadioRob said:

There are a few areas I've been confused about this:

• The date for this has been known for a LOOOONG time.  The deadline has been pushed already multiple times.  Why has this not been a higher priority for federal officials before now?  If this has been felt to be a problem, they should have been resolving this way before hand.  Specifically before the spectrum was released to the carriers.  The FAA literally will kill other activities from even being talked about but did not object until after the release of the spectrum?  Something is screwed up here.  
• I have not seen anywhere from the FAA or the airlines that clearly outline what they feel the problem is other than "it could be catastrophic".  Spell out exactly what the concern is.  
• Why is this a problem only within the US and not overseas where the 5G roll out has been happening long before this.  
• What exactly is the FAA/airlines asking for?  Originally I recall reading they needed a few extra days/weeks to wrap up some extra checks.  They need to clearly articulate a plan to resolving the issue.  If they cannot do this, there should be a TON of people at the FAA fired for incompetence.

Why are people from the FAA not literally locked a room with people from the carriers to figure this out with no one leaving the room till a game plan is worked out and agreed to from both sides.  

In a nutshell... spell out the damned who, what, where, when, why, and how.  Quit making excuses and figure it out.  

 

Bingo. Exactly. 

The airlines and the FAA have had PLENTY of time to figure this out, but instead dragged their heels and are now crying wolf. 

Mobile phone companies have already spent upwards of $100 billion on this rollout. 

C-band will be great for the consumer and will bring cell technology up to par with much of what's already been in Asia for awhile. 

[+ glutes]

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/why-does-5g-only-pose-a-problem-for-us-airplanes/d/d-id/774629

[RadioRob]

19 minutes ago, glutes said:

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/why-does-5g-only-pose-a-problem-for-us-airplanes/d/d-id/774629

Thank you. A great read on why!

It’s sad that the US is supposed to be a “worldwide leader” in aviation safety but was not in front of this years ago and why they can’t figure out how to get out of their own way to resolve it. 

[jeezifonly]

How was the government to know that airline pilots have to have communication and positioning working properly??

[+ Tygerscent]

16 hours ago, marylander1940 said:

Major U.S. airlines warn 5G could ground some planes, wreak havoc | Reuters

OP note: the ripple effects across both passenger, cargo operations and workforce and the broader economy are simply incalculable.

It’s interesting… in the areas in the two states I rove frequently, places where 5G positioned in place, had a lot of frequency haze/distortion~ sometimes my GPS would just spin around in circles. I would literally be looking at the screen on my phone and watching the map spin 360s and then maybe stop and start turning the other way. It would show my car in the middle of a field and not even on the road. Do weird things happen like my text messages don’t go through at all ever… They show up on my phone but they don’t go to the person I’m sending them to or vice versa. That’s really confusing and then all of a sudden the Conversation picks up again and neither one of us know what the other is talking about because in entire section of the conversation is gone. A lot of times the Internet traffic is so heavy and there’s so much control over the band with that absolutely nothing goes through… You may be have high-speed Internet and broadband for a few moments but then it disappears and everything just stalls~ 

 it was particularly true with my iPhone 7 but, then it even happened with my 12 max pro and my 11 max pro one of which is 5G. The other is at least capable of picking things up somewhat. 
 It just seems that the cell service providers, 5G, other frequencies and the technology of the phones isn’t quite compatible~ 

 A lot of times I find that in 5G areas things like airplanes, (commercial and/or military), passing overhead, knock all signals out of the air~ 

 Sometimes I have to drive out of the 5G area just to get a decent signal and better bandwidth reception. The GPS seems much more trustworthy as well~ 

[+ Tygerscent]

2 hours ago, Benjamin_Nicholas said:

Bingo. Exactly. 

The airlines and the FAA have had PLENTY of time to figure this out, but instead dragged their heels and are now crying wolf. 

Mobile phone companies have already spent upwards of $100 billion on this rollout. 

C-band will be great for the consumer and will bring cell technology up to par with much of what's already been in Asia for awhile. 

I’m not really sure that the government wants to relinquish much control over bandwidth, allowances for high speed exchange and consumer use of those services and provisions.I’m not really sure that the government wants to relinquish much control over bandwidth, allowances for high speed exchange and consumer use of those technologies~ 

 I think a lot of that was really sets into play when net neutrality was dissolved in 2017

[+ Tygerscent]

An example of 5G bizarreness: 

 note I-5, 99 and 20 are showing to be scattered around the landscape and do not correlate to their actual positions in the real world topology~ Everything is anywhere from 3 to 7 miles off approx~
 If you try to zoom in, the icons move all over the map, sometimes changing positions with each other completely~ Sometimes, the cities themselves change~ 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Tygerscent

[+ sync]

I'm curious to know if there has been any input relative to the effect of 5G on military aircraft.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Bottom line, C-band and 5G have been talked about for 10+ years.

The FCC, FAA and FTA had a ton of time to prepare for this.  They dropped the ball.

@Tygerscent: As for bandwidth control, it was the government who sold this band to the mobile phone companies for about $86 billion back in early 2021.  They aren't trying to control it.  They're just slow on the uptake.

 

[+ Tygerscent]

2 hours ago, Benjamin_Nicholas said:

Bottom line, C-band and 5G have been talked about for 10+ years.

The FCC, FAA and FTA had a ton of time to prepare for this.  They dropped the ball.

@Tygerscent: As for bandwidth control, it was the government who sold this band to the mobile phone companies for about $86 billion back in early 2021.  They aren't trying to control it.  They're just slow on the uptake.

 

Same thing… 😂

[marylander1940]

nothing yet...  I guess precautions were taken. 

With an apparent win on 5G, things are looking better for airlines. Finally - CNN