The Poplar Bluff Regional Business Airport won’t be impacted by any decisions made by cell phone carriers and the FAA over the rollout of 5G, local officials say.
The controversy over 5G surrounds instruments used to help land planes at the two lowest visibility ratings, explained Gary Pride, director of airport operations. The Poplar Bluff airport is not rated for either of those, he said.
However, if any planes are diverted from Poplar Bluff because of visibility issues, the next closest airport that could be impacted would be Cape Girardeau, Pride explained.
The Cape Girardeau airport falls within one of the Partial Economic Areas, in which 5G C-band will not be rolled out until 2023, according to Cape Girardeau officials.
“There are three levels of instrument approach for (aircraft),” Pride said. “5G seems to affect the (two) most serious, the ones where the ground cover is the thickest and the aircraft is having to get the lowest to the ground before it can see the runway.”
The airlines and FAA are pretty confident in their position that 5G can cause problems with instruments that tell airplanes how high they are above the ground and GPS navigation that tells the aircraft precisely where it is located, Pride explained.
Cell phone carriers disagree, he said.
A decision was made Tuesday by AT&T and Verizon to temporarily delay 5G rollouts near certain airports. The rollout was scheduled for Wednesday.
There is tremendous lobbying power on both sides of the debate, Pride said, and both entities have been adamant in their position.
Compromises that could be considered, he believes, include limiting 5G within so many miles of impacted airports or shielding the direction and strength of the signal from airports.
“It may not be a problem on every flight that comes in, but unfortunately the risk is there,” he said. “I’d hate to see an accident be the determiner about how they should go forward in the future.”
Pride said any aircraft could be vulnerable to the issue.
AT&T reported it had “temporarily deferred turning on C-Band transmitters within a two-mile radius of the airport runways specified by the Federal Aviation Administration,” though the telecommunications company did not disclose the affected airports.
Verizon, in a separate statement, said it “voluntarily decided to limit our 5G network around airports.”
Verizon’s statement also did not detail the impacted airports.
Airlines for America, a trade organization representing passenger and cargo carriers, filed an emergency request with the FCC late last year asking for a 5G rollout delay, citing concerns for airports such as John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and George Bush Airport in Houston.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and FAA Administrator Steve Dickson also asked for a delay in both cellphone carriers’ 5G rollout.
President Joe Biden commended both companies for the voluntary deferral of 5G.
“This agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90%of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled,” Biden said Tuesday. “This agreement protects flight safety and allows aviation operations to continue without significant disruption and will bring more high-speed internet options to millions of Americans.”
“We are frustrated by the FAA’s inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it to do so in a timely manner,” an AT&T spokesperson said.
Information from the Southeast Missourian and Associated Press contributed to this article.