Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge 5G vs. airlines

I have zero expertise with this issue, but perhaps someone has the necessary experience to express an opinion: 5G expansion will cause 'catastrophic' economic crisis, airlines claim

I am running into multiple areas on the Interstate near my home, where a concentration of 5G towers is "breaking" the bluetooth connection between my iPhone and the "infotainment" system in my car. Since I am using "CarPlay" to navigate that means I lose navigation assistance and map display in those areas. In my case that is annoying, but I can always pull off the road and stop to get my bearings. A luxury not available to aircraft pilots on final landing approach. Given the navigation systems in aircraft, particularly the ILS (Instrument Landing Systems) are far more sensitive to interference and the potential consequences can be far more serious when those systems fail, together with the fact that for many reasons, virtually every airline landing is an ILS landing, in my opinion, the airlines' concerns are well founded.

That does not mean there are no solutions: There are numerous federal, state, and local regulations controlling various things that can intrude into the airspace near an airport. It would be feasible to create regulations prohibiting 5G cell towers within a given radius from an airport or approach pattern or to put it another way, limiting cellular networks to LTE within a given distance of an airport. It might also be feasible, albeit at the cost of trillions of dollars to the airlines and taxpayers, to harden aircraft navigation systems against 5G interference.

At this point 5G is spreading rapidly enough there is a significant possibility for probability of a major disaster with significant loss of life, before either regulations or technology can catch up.

5G has been in service for some time in Europe and specifically here in the UK. So far, nothing has dropped out of the sky, for which I am grateful as I live under a flight path.

Will keep you posted...

I posted this topic at TechSurvivors, knowing that one of the administrators is a former pilot. He has responded in a detailed way. See this TS thread

And this, just in: Carriers agree to another 5G delay around US airports