Verizon, AT&T reject federal request to delay 5G on C-band

On New Year’s Eve, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Federal Aviation Administration chief Steve Dickson asked AT&T and Verizon to delay their launch of 5G in C-band spectrum by two weeks.

That delay, they explained, would give federal regulators more time to figure out whether 5G operations in C-band spectrum might affect aircraft radio altimeters.

But in a letter issued Sunday (January 2), Verizon and AT&T said they will not delay their launch, currently scheduled for Wednesday (January 5).

“Agreeing to your proposal would not only be an unprecedented and unwarranted circumvention of the due process and checks and balances carefully crafted in the structure of our democracy, but an irresponsible abdication of the operating control required to deploy world-class and globally competitive communications networks that are every bit as essential to our country’s economic vitality, public safety and national interests as the airline industry,” AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg responded in the letter, which was published by The Wall Street Journal.

Instead, the two companies issued a counterproposal: An increase in the size of the “exclusion zones” they’ll operate around airports. AT&T and Verizon promised that, for the next six months, they’ll avoid 5G operations in C-band spectrum near major US airports using the same technical parameters that are already being used in France.

“US aircraft currently fly in and out of France every day with thousands of US passengers and with the full approval of the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. As a result, France provides a real-world example of an operating environment where 5G and aviation safety already coexist,” Vestberg and Stankey wrote.

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