Europe rolled out 5G without hurting aviation. Here's how

LTC Eugene Chu
..."London/Paris (CNN Business) Major international airlines are canceling flights to the United States over aviation industry fears that 5G technology could interfere with crucial onboard instruments.

But it's business as usual in Europe, where the latest generation of high-speed mobile networks is being rolled out without a hitch.
"The technical data received from EU manufacturers offers no conclusive evidence for immediate safety concerns at this time," the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) told CNN Business on Wednesday.
"At this time, EASA is not aware of any in-service incidents caused by 5G interference," added the regulator, which oversees civil aviation in 31 European countries.
The story is much the same in the United Kingdom, where the Civil Aviation Authority issued a safety notice on Tuesday that said, "there have been no confirmed instances where 5G interference has resulted in aircraft system malfunction or unexpected behavior."

The lack of alarm in Europe stands in stark contrast to the United States, where airlines have warned of catastrophic consequences for aviation and the economy if super-fast 5G mobile service expands without additional safeguards. US airlines and aviation regulators have warned that 5G cellular antennas near airports could distort readings from radar altimeters, which tell pilots how far they are from the ground.
"Any failures or interruptions of [radar altimeters] can ... lead to incidents with catastrophic outcome, potentially resulting in multiple fatalities," the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations (IFALPA) said in 2020.
Why is there a potential problem in the United States, but not Europe? It comes down to technical details.
Mobile phone companies in the United States are rolling out 5G service in a spectrum of radio waves with frequencies between 3.7 and 3.98 GHz. The companies paid the US government $81 billion in 2021 for the right to use those frequencies, known as the C-Band. But in Europe, 5G services use the slower 3.4 to 3.8 GHz range of spectrum.
The aviation industry is worried that US 5G service is too close to the spectrum used by radar altimeters, which is between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz. Europe does not face the same risk, according to the industry, because there is a much larger buffer between the spectrum used by radar altimeters and 5G.
"If there is no proper mitigation, this risk has the potential for broad impacts to aviation operations in the United States as well as in other regions where the 5G network is being implemented next to the 4.2 to 4.4 GHz frequency band," IATA and IFALPA said in their statement."...