Verizon and AT&T agree to delay 5G rollout

Verizon and AT&T have agreed to the Biden Administration’s request to delay their 5G rollouts set for later this week.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the FAA had made the request over aviation safety concerns. The Industry had warned that 5G signals might interfere with aircraft electronics and could end up disrupting flights.

The companies had initially rejected the requests by the FAA and Transportation Secretary and were set to begin 5G operations. They had already delayed the rollout before and were not ready to accept requests for another delay.

Instead, AT&T and Verizon suggested they could stop services at airports for about half a year to protect aviation services, but that wasn’t deemed safe by Aviation bosses.

Boeing and Airbus had appealed to Transportation Secretary Buttigieg in December to convince AT&T and Verizon to once again delay the rollout of 5G. They feared the wireless signals would interfere with aircraft ability to operate safely.

Late on Monday, both telecommunications companies voluntarily agreed to accept a 2-week delay proposed by Pete Buttigieg. They believe 5G and aviation safety can co-exist.

The FAA will now work on reducing possible flight delays supposedly caused by the 5G deployment.