Dallas-based AT&T says it will voluntarily delay turning on some C-band 5G network towers Wednesday after the chief executives of 11 airlines, including Dallas-based Southwest and Fort Worth-based American, signed a letter warning against a planned adoption of new cellular service.
The executives' letter asks for the network to be adopted everywhere except within two miles of airport runways. The letter was addressed to the U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson, and FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
"Immediate intervention is needed to avoid significant operational disruption to air passengers, shippers, supply chain and delivery of needed medical supplies. The harm that will result from deployment on January 19 is substantially worse than we originally anticipated for two key reasons," the letter reads.
The reasons listed include potential flight restrictions at most of the country's 50 biggest airports. The FAA says the nation's biggest airports already have a large enough buffer, and cell phone carriers have agreed to limit 5G expansion near those airports.
A list provided by the FAA includes DFW Airport and Love Field in North Texas, George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport around Houston, and Austin Bergstrom Airport.
"Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will essentially be grounded," the letter continues. "This means that on a day like yesterday, more than 1,100 flights and 100,000 passengers would be subjected to cancellations, diversions or delays."
The second reason listed says flight restrictions would not be limited to poor weather conditions.
"Because radio altimeters provide critical information to other safety and navigation systems in modern airplanes, multiple modern safety systems on aircraft will be deemed unusable causing a much larger problem than what we knew on January 5, 2022. Airplane manufacturers have informed us that there are huge swaths of the operating fleet that may need to be indefinitely grounded. In addition to the chaos caused domestically, this lack of usable widebody aircraft could potentially strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas," the letter reads.
Tuesday, AT&T responded, saying, "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."
AT&T's statement says the FAA has "not utilized the two years they’ve had to responsibly plan for this deployment. We are frustrated by the FAA’s inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it do so in a timely manner."
AT&T says it would launch its advanced 5G services everywhere else Wednesday.
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