The main airlines of the United States sounded the alarm last week by sending a joint letter to the main bodies that regulate aviation and even to the White House itself: if the operators turned on the 5G network near the airports, the security of thousands of flights was in danger. The reason for this alarm is that the frequencies on which the new generation of mobile telephony operates can interfere with the one used by airplanes to measure their altitude, which can lead to catastrophic accidents. Emirates, Air India, Lufthansa, British Airways or Japan Airlines, among others, announced cancellations or changes of flights to the US for this reason.
And the question that travelers are asking now is whether this problem can occur in Spain. The answer is that the different administrations responsible for aviation safety in contact with the European authorities have been working for more than two years to prevent it. Indeed, the State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA), the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures (SETID), in coordination with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have studied the issue at various meetings of their working groups and they have made several reports to guarantee that when 5G becomes widespread in Spain, it is fully guaranteed that it will not interfere with the security systems of the planes, they informed EL PAÍS in official sources.
The four major operators -Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange and MásMóvil- are also participating in different meetings to ensure that the new technology, called to revolutionize telecommunications and the connected industry, is safe for aviation.
The message that both official bodies and the companies consulted by this newspaper insist on conveying is that future air passengers in Spain can rest easy because the situation in the country and in the EU has nothing to do with that of the United States. In the first place, because the deployment of antennas in the vicinity of airports (around 3 kilometers) is still in its infancy. And, secondly and more importantly, because the high frequency band assigned for 5G in Spain has a margin (buffer, in technical jargon) much larger with the spectrum used by aircraft radar altimeters than there is in the United States.
And it is that the problem detected there is that the emissions of the 5G cellular antennas in the surroundings of some airports – the towers and not the mobile phones of the travelers – can interfere with the radar altimeters of the planes that use radio signals to measure altitude, the data systems that help planes land. These devices work in the frequency band of 4.2 to 4.4 gigahertz (GHz) and mobile phone companies planned to deploy their 5G service near some airports in a spectrum of radio waves with frequencies between 3.7 and 3 .98GHz
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Only Vodafone, on the border
In Spain, the allocation of frequencies for 5G is very different from that in the US. So far, frequencies have been allocated in the 700 Mhz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands. The latter it is the only one that can cause problems, although the distribution that was made between the operators limits this risk even more. Thus, the 3.5GHz band actually covers from 3,400 to 3,800 GHz. MásMóvil is assigned 80 MHz in the lower part of the spectrum (3,420 and 3,500 MHz); Telefónica has another 100 MHz (3,500 and 3,600 MHz); Orange has 110 MHz (3,600 to 3,710 MHz) and Vodafone has 90 MHz in the highest band (3,710 to 3,800 MHz). This last band in which the British operator operates is the one that is closest to those used by aircraft altimeters, and the one that could pose a problem, although the sources consulted emphasize that there is a sufficient margin (of 400 MHz) to that the signals from the Vodafone antennas do not interfere with those used by aircraft reading equipment by which the pilot knows the height above the ground.
The activity of the Spanish authorities to avoid any problem has been very intense for two years, according to information collected by this newspaper. The State Aviation Safety Agency already issued a first informative circular in December 2020 on the use of frequencies. Although the AESA was aware that the allocation of frequencies in Spain and Europe is different from that used in the United States, and there are no records of problems, it decided to publish this document to inform and notify possible incidents.
On the other hand, the European EASA began to lead this issue in February 2021 and it was addressed in various meetings of its working groups, and held a working meeting in February 2021 under the title “5G-Potential interference with the low range of altimeters” (“5G – Potential interference on Low Range Radio Altimeters (LRRA) (virtual) Workshop” in the original in English), in which AESA participated.
The European Agency has also reviewed the report from the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA), taking into account both the specificity of the 5G frequency spectrum in Europe and the High Intensity Radiated Field (HIRF) rating of modern aircraft. In addition, it is working with European aircraft and equipment manufacturers, the European Commission, Eurocontrol and aviation authorities, to collect data and share information, in order to assess risk and determine the need, if any, for mitigate risks.
“Based on the evaluation that EASA has made of all the information that is currently available, it has considered that there is no immediate need for risk mitigation actions or for the States to act,” official sources told EL PAÍS. In fact, on December 17, EASA issued a Security Information Bulletin (SIB) regarding the effect of 5G on air operations due to its possible impact on aircraft altimeters.
At the same time, the authorities are working closely with mobile phone companies and the DigitalEs employers to test and verify that 5G does not interfere with other services that use the radio spectrum such as aviation or digital television. In addition, aircraft manufacturers, and in particular Airbus and Boeing, have carried out tests to test these services, and have the capacity to install filters that attenuate the signals that arrive from mobile phone towers.
A still very incipient deployment
The 5G or fifth generation of mobile telephony are a series of standards that will allow a leap in wireless technology similar to that which led to the invention of the desktop PC for computing. Thanks to 5G, millions of devices will be able to connect with each other and process thousands of petabytes of data in real time to govern remotely from factories to fully automated homes and smart cities. 5G connections are already 10 times faster than current 4G, but in the future speeds will be 250 times faster. In addition, 5G can support the connection of up to a million devices per square kilometer, which, together with low latency, makes it the ideal technology to exploit the Internet of things and artificial intelligence on a massive scale.
But despite the fact that it is already announced as a commercial claim by telecommunications operators, the deployment of 5G is still very incipient in Spain. Vodafone has been the earliest riser and since 2019 it has offered coverage in the 25 largest cities in the 3.5GHz band, which it has just expanded with the switching on of the 700MHz frequency in 109 municipalities in 30 provinces progressively from today and throughout this year.
For its part, Telefónica has continued to increase the deployment that began in 2020, reaching coverage of more than 80% of the population at the end of 2021, reaching more than 38 million inhabitants, in almost 1,400 municipalities throughout Spain. MásMóvil, through its Yoigo brand, already provides 5G service to 54% of the Spanish population, covering 80% of the country’s provinces, and has expanded the coverage of its 5G services to reach a total of 700 municipalities and cities in 40 Spanish provinces. And at the end of September, 51.2% of the population had access to Orange Spain’s 5G mobile network, which now reaches 778 municipalities in 38 Spanish provinces.