NEW DELHI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday said that it doesn’t think the introduction of 5G services will have any effect on flight operations in India. An official from TRAI mentioned that the auction is yet to take place in the country. However, he doesn’t see India facing such problems after rolling out 5G operations.
“I won’t comment on what is happening in the US right now as the matter is pertaining to the other country. However, I don’t think India will face such problems in future. Auction dates are still very far away. If there is any problem, the Department of Telecom will take care of it,” said the official.
For the past one month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has raised concerns around the launch of 5G using the C-band spectrum near US airports. They said 5G airwaves in that particular frequency band would interfere with the sensitive aircraft electronics such as radio altimeters, which could disrupt flight operation. The US telecom operators, AT&T and Verizon, had announced to activate their 5G networks from January 19.
Subsequently, major international airlines including Air India canceled or changed their flight schedule on Wednesday. In India too, the 6,000-pilot-strong Federation of Indian Pilots, on 4 January, wrote to Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and requested him to ask the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) work in tandem to develop a plan that enables the safe and efficient implementation of fifth generation (5G) mobile communications networks in the C-band. But Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents telecos rebuffed such speculation and called it uncorroborated.
Safe for 5G and aviation to co-exist: COAI
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said there is enough gap of 530 MHz (from 3670 MHz to 4200 MHz) in the transmission of frequencies, making it safe for 5G and aviation to co-exist.