The Federal Aviation Administration’s ongoing battle with Verizon and AT&T over ultra-fast 5G C-band deployment around airports is finally ending: On Friday, the FAA announced an agreement (opens in new tab) on new steps that allow yet more 5G towers to operate safely around key airports. In the year since Verizon and AT&T paid nearly $70 billion for the mid-band 5G spectrum (T-Mobile 600-MHz 5G that is not C-band) — a slice of the bandwidth that provides better reliability and speed than Verizon and AT&T’s original 5G deployments — the FAA, US, Department of Transportation, and more recently the major airlines have expressed concern over possible safety issues, which has led to multiple deployment delays. At the crux was whether 5G C-band towers situated near airports could interfere with some flight instrumentation, namely the altimeters that tell pilots how far they are from the ground.
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