According to industry sources, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has written to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), raising concerns regarding the 5G rollout on likely interference of the spectrum with aircrafts. The primary concern for the aviation regulator is the coexistence of altimeters and a part of the 5G telecom services in the C-band.
Meanwhile, DGCA is reportedly working with the DoT and has informed about its concerns. While for the telecom service providers, the C-band represents a strategic spot for rolling out 5G services and ensuring coverage and high bandwidth, it provides exact measurements of the plane’s altitude for aircraft operations. The issue highlighted by DGCA comes in the backdrop of the concerns raised by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), since telecom operators in United States have started rolling out 5G services.
A radio altimeter provides direct-height-above-terrain information to several aircraft systems. The radio altimeters pick up even the faintest signals, reflected off the ground in the assigned frequencies, to attain highly accurate results. Therefore, according to the aviation authorities, there are high possibilities that the instruments might pick up out-of-band signals, which could significantly impair the altimeters’ functioning.
According to DoT official, the department is working toward resolving the concerns. The official also added that the issue in the US became significant because the operators there are deploying 5G services in the 3.7-3.98 GHz frequencies, which is closer to the radio altimeter frequencies.
