Even as airlines in the United States are up in arms against the roll-out of 5G services around airports, Indian airlines industry executives say that there is unlikely to be any disruption in services in India.
Speaking with BusinessLine, Vinod Kannan , Chief Executive Officer, Vistara, said India-specific issues can be sorted out during the ongoing 5G trials. “They are going to have a trial. It might not be that bad. There are specific reasons why these issues happened in the US. One of them is the power of the transmitter. Then there is the frequency band which is very close to the radio frequency (used by airlines). Also, the fact that the towers are very close to the airport. In the rest of the world, 5G is already done so it could be a potential issue, but in India, we are taking a more structured approach so I don’t think it will be a problem.”
Avionic interference
In January, top US airlines wrote to the Biden administration stating that 5G services deployment around airports should be banned because it may interfere with sensitive airplane instruments such as altimeters and significantly hamper low-visibility operations. Frequencies within the C-band being used for the 5G services are near airwaves used for aviation communication.
Following this, several airlines around the world including Air India had curtailed flights to the US which was resumed after AT&T and Verizon voluntarily limited 5G deployment near certain airports as a temporary measure.
No issue in India
“This issue was very peculiar to the US. It was an issue with the US 5G network and the US legislation. This is not a 5G issue, this was not an aviation issue, this was just one of those where two parties need to sit together and decide what they want to do. It wasn’t an issue anywhere in the world. For Europe, for example, it was a non-issue. In Europe, they sat together and decided what to do. In India, also it won’t be an issue because there are discussions already around this,” said Vinay Dube, Founder, Managing Director and CEO, Akasa.
Generally, all airlines ask passengers to switch off their phones during take-off and landing because of concerns related to interference with avionics. But so far, this concern has only been on paper because mobile operators and airlines have been using different frequency bands. Therefore there was no real risk of interference. But in the US, since both telecom companies and airlines use the C-band, there could be a higher probability of interference.