Stefan Mileschin

We don’t think you know who is in charge here

AT&T and Verizon rejected the US Department of Transportation's request that they delay this week's scheduled launch of a new round of 5G wireless service.

The government wanted a delay to stop planes falling out of the sky if the new 5G service was bought in around airports.

However, AT&T and Verizon said that did not matter as they would take “enhanced measures to avoid warned disruptions of air travel."

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and FAA Administrator Steve Dickson had asked the companies on New Year's Eve to put off Wednesday's launch of the new wireless service for two additional weeks while their agencies address concerns that the new signals could interfere with some types of aircraft equipment.

Unless those issues are resolved, air travellers will face "widespread and unacceptable disruption as airplanes divert to other cities or flights are cancelled, causing ripple effects throughout the US air transportation," Buttigieg and Dickson wrote in their letter.

The wireless carriers' rebuff is the latest step in weeks of an escalating standoff between the aviation and telecommunication sectors — a year after the mobile phone companies spent more than $80 billion to buy licenses for the 5G-friendly C-band airwaves at a Federal Communications Commission auction.

https://fudzilla.com/news/54141-at-t...t-s-5g-request