Ensuring safe rollout of 5G networks

Doha: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) urged governments to work closely with the aviation industry to ensure that aviation and incumbent safety systems can safely co-exist with new 5G services.

While IATA recognises the economic importance of making spectrum available to support next-generation commercial wireless telecommunications, maintaining current levels of safety of passengers, flight crews, and aircraft must continue to be one of the governments’ highest priorities. The call came as the industry was meeting in Doha, Qatar at the 78th IATA Annual General Meeting.

“We must not repeat the recent experience in the United States, where the rollout of C-band spectrum 5G services created enormous disruption to aviation, owing to the potential risk of interference with radio altimeters that are critical to aircraft landing and safety systems,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director-General.

“In fact, many countries have successfully managed to facilitate the requirements of 5G service providers, while including necessary mitigations to preserve aviation safety and uninterrupted services. These include, for example, Brazil, Canada, France and Thailand,” he added.

Before deciding on any spectrum allocations or conducting spectrum auctions, IATA called for governments to ensure close coordination and mutual understandings between national spectrum and aviation safety regulators so that each frequency allocation/assignment is comprehensively studied and is proven not to adversely impact aviation safety and efficiency.

Robust testing in coordination with aviation subject matter experts is critically important in providing necessary information.