Pete Buttigieg and Steve Dickson are hoping to put the power of their offices - and the federal government - behind them.
Buttigieg, the Department of Transportation Secretary, and Dickson, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, have sent a joint letter directly to both AT&T and Verizon, asking the telecommunications companies to delay the implementation of their new 5G wireless services.
The two government agencies have joined Airlines for America in asking for a postponement of the January 5 rollout, which they believe would cause disruptions to flights.
Airlines for America, the lobby group for virtually all U.S. airlines, made its appeal to the Federal Communications Commission.
The DOT and FAA went straight to the wireless carriers.
"We ask that your companies continue to pause introducing commercial C-Band service for an additional short period of no more than two weeks beyond the currently scheduled deployment date of January 5," Buttigieg and Dickson wrote to the two companies in a letter dated December 31, 2021, as reported by the Washington D.C.-based political outlet The Hill.
The two men are not asking for a halt to the 5G service; rather, they want it to roll out incrementally until they have a chance to see how it would affect flights, especially around the country's major airports.
"Commercial C-band service would begin as planned in January with certain exceptions around priority airports," they wrote. "The FAA and the aviation industry will identify priority airports where a buffer zone would permit aviation operations to continue safely while the FAA completes its assessments of the interference potential around those airports. … C-Band planned locations will be activated by the end of March 2022, barring unforeseen technical challenges or new safety concerns."
AT&T and Verizon both told The Hill they are in receipt of the letter and are reviewing it.
"Years of research by the government and private industry has proven that 5G and aviation can safely coexist, just as it does in over 40 other nations," Verizon said in a statement. "There is absolutely no reason why there should or will be any difference in the U.S. Assertions to the contrary are baseless and make absolutely no sense."
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