Over the past few days, there were concerns growing for the aircraft due to the 5G connectivity rollout in the US. The same concern strikes Indians as well. Though 5G is still on its way to India, people are worried in the same way, if the aircraft will be safe after 5G deployment or not. As a regulatory body, TRAI steps in for this matter and answers. The overall scenario after 5G deployment will be safe as per the reply.
A number of flights had been cancelled and/or postponed because of the fear of the risk to the aircraft instruments due to the 5G network. It was impacting some popular jets like Boeing 777. All these concerns appear because of the distance between the 5G spectrum frequencies and aircraft radio altimeters frequency. There is only a 220MHz gap, whereas it will be much wider in India, 530MHz.
To simplify, in the US, 3700MHz to 3980MHz bands range is used for 5G and 4200MHz to 4400MHz for radio altimeters on the aircraft. So, the gap is just 220MHz. In India, on the other hand, the 5G bands will be between 3300MHz to 3670MHz making a gap of 530MHz from the radio altimeters’ bands on the aircraft. Almost the same frequencies are also allotted across Europe, South Korea, and Japan. In the mentioned areas, no issues have been detected with the airline frequencies.
The Chairman of TRAI P D Vaghela told to Times of India, “India will have no problems. Prima facie, there are no problems for the aviation industry within India over 5G spectrum rollout”.
“Most of the concerns here are being driven by fear floating in the US. The fact is there is no need to panic in India, and there will not be any impact on the av-iation operations over the Indian soil,” S P Kochhar, DG of Cellular Operators Association of India, said.
