No more refunds. The FCC isn't getting the money. The Treasury is. And, they don't do refunds.

So, multiple applications will simply cost more to no good. Unless you consider it a donation.

Yeah. Blame That Guy with the 500 applications.

I had to go look that up. Make that Those Guys. As in more than one. The callsign applied for was K7DX.

One guy applied 232 times.

Another 115 times

Another 110 times (he won it)

Another 101 times

Another 46 times (slacker)

So, I bet all those refund requests sent up Very Star flares (rather than red flags).

The altimeter design problem goes back decades. "Fundamentally, the problem is a design issue with the aviation industry's radar altimeters," Dennis Roberson, who runs a technology consulting firm and is a research professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, told lawmakers during a House subcommittee hearing in February.

When altimeters were designed, "they had very low-power neighbors, i.e., satellites beaming their information to the earth from very distant orbits... This led the early designers of the altimeters to decide they really could ignore their assigned spectrum boundaries, and as a result they allow transmitted energy far outside their band into the receiver," Roberson explained.

The aviation industry's slowness in fixing altimeters may lead to the FCC cracking down on bad wireless receivers. In April, the FCC voted unanimously to launch an inquiry into poorly designed wireless devices that receive transmissions from outside their allotted frequencies.

The inquiry could result in new receiver regulations similar to the rules that already require wireless devices to transmit only in their licensed frequencies. "To avoid harmful interference, we typically have rules about how and when transmitters can operate," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at the April meeting. "But wireless communications systems involve transmitters and receivers... so we need to rethink our approach to spectrum policy and move beyond just transmitters and consider receivers, too."

UPDATE (Thu Jan 20): After the debacle on Tuesday, with the cancellation of 777 and 747-8 flights by multiple international airlines, it seems the FAA was embarrassed (or forced) into accelerating the issuance of AMOC approvals for additional altimeters, approving the 777 on Wednesday morning, and the number of altimeters approved and percentage of the US fleet covered has now grown very quickly:
Tuesday Jan 18: 2 altimeters and 45% of the US fleet
Wednesday Jan 19: 5 altimeters and 62% of the US fleet
Thursday Jan 20: 13 altimeters and 78% of the US fleet.

The result has been that most disruption has been avoided, although regional jets remain a concern, with some problems resulting from low visibility. However, the rapid pace of approvals, and the expectation from airlines that there won’t be “any material disruption going forward”, further discredits the FAA’s fearmongering over the weekend, not least because an AMOC has now been issued covering all 787 jets, which were supposedly the cause of greatest alarm. Suggestions that airlines would need to “swap out the altimeters” in a process lasting years and costing billions of dollars, also appear to be well wide of the mark. //

But the FAA’s statements appear to confirm that they are only issuing AMOCs approving altimeters to operate while the current 5G deployment restrictions remain in place: “The new safety buffer announced Tuesday around airports in the 5G deployment further expanded the number of airports available to planes with previously cleared altimeters to perform low-visibility landings.”

So it is perhaps no wonder Boeing is refusing to comment because they don’t want to get into a public shouting match with the FAA, despite the behind the scenes confrontation over the 777 at the beginning of this week outlined above. But you can be sure that many aviation interests are demanding that the restrictions continue permanently and the FAA is preparing for another showdown on July 5th, when the current six month period of restrictions is set to expire.

All barking up the wrong tree.

The FAA should have evaluated some actual altimeters before the FCC approved the use of C-Band for 5G and fed into that process.

This, coupled with the 737Max debacle - means heads really have to roll at the FAA. Problems with both attitude and competence.

Prior would have been challenging. The FAA was unusure how much spectrum to allocate to 5G. The band in question is 3.7 to 4.2 GHz. Prior to 2020 it was ALL used for fixed sattelite service (FSS). The FCC had a long negotiated process to determine how much or little or that would be reorganized to be used for mobile services (5G) and how much would remain as FSS. That dividing line would determine how far the new 5G c-band would be from the radio altimeter band. The FCC looked at reallocating as little as 100 MHz and as much as all 500 MHz to mobile services (although that was very unlikely). Boeing and the avionic companies simply said don't reallocate more than 400 MHz (5G would end at 4.1 GHz). The FCC reallocated even less. 300 MHz and then stripped off 20 MHz for a guard band so it ended at 3.98 GHz.

So while the FAA maybe could have done some preliminary testing of a few possible scenarios they didn't know the realignment plan until the FCC completed it. Still that happened in 2020 almost two years ago. At that point the FAA should have known that baring credible actual evidence of interference the auction and rollout would eventually happen. They could have mandated testing then or a year later when the auction was completed.

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After stalling for almost two years, FAA cleared 78% of planes in the past week. //

These statements marked a sudden shift, coming just three days after Parker and Kirby signed a letter claiming that 5G on the C-band would cause "catastrophic disruption" to air travel. //

The biggest recent development is that the FAA finally started a process to evaluate and approve altimeters after claiming without proof that 5G on C-Band spectrum (3.7 to 3.98 GHz) would disrupt altimeters that use spectrum from 4.2 GHz to 4.4 GHz. While the Federal Communications Commission created a 220 MHz guard band to protect airplane equipment, poorly built altimeters may be unable to filter out transmissions from other spectrum bands.

The FAA didn't start its process of evaluating the actual altimeters used by airplanes after February 2020, when the Federal Communications Commission approved the use of C-Band spectrum for 5G. The FAA also didn't start this evaluation process after the FCC auctioned off the spectrum to wireless carriers in February 2021. Instead, the FAA continued arguing that 5G deployment should be blocked long after carriers started preparing their equipment and towers to use the C-band. //

The FAA saying that deployment at these frequencies might cause problems doesn't make any sense at all because its already been done. Is the US some special case where laws of physics don't apply?

As someone joked in another post, metric vs imperial wavelengths? //

The FAA could have been in CYA mode even three months ago and had 99.9% of aircraft cleared prior to the Jan 17th go live date. They didn't even start to do their job until Jan 4th. I would point out the original go live date was 1 Nov so the FAA got a homework extension twice and still didn't turn it in on time. //

The FAA came up with a testing regime this year and now we've got most altimeters in use having been cleared, just 3 weeks later. The resources it and the airline industry spent fighting 5G C-band deployment seem quite clearly to far exceed the resources it spent on testing and discovering there's actually no problem. //

I can't help but think that some airline CEOs tinfoil hat wearing, 5G conspiracist brother-in-law got a hold of them at a holiday get together to let him know of the imminent air disaster due to the 5G transmitters and now caused this ridiculousness for the past several weeks.

The rollout of 5G cellular phone service has started affecting operations around the country—a terrific story in The Air Current by Jon Ostrower detailed the confusion at Palm Beach International yesterday, writing, “The aircraft’s radar altitude abruptly ran down to zero, causing repeated loud aural warnings: PULL UP WHOOP WHOOP DON’T SINK TOO LOW GEAR. The flight landed without incident in good weather, but it wasn’t the first time. ‘Exact same location multiple times the past two weeks,’ the pilot, who was on the flight deck for both anomalies, told The Air Current.”

And now Airbus has issued guidance to pilots that details the many things that could go wrong with their planes’ systems if the radar altimeter, built into a handful of systems, including Autoland and Ground Proximity Warning Systems, were to get erroneous readings.

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/5g-network-disruption-cluster/

Radio spectrum, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, is divided into different frequency bands that have been allocated for data, voice, and wireless communications used by a variety of different industries. Aircraft radar altimeters operate within 4.2–4.4 GHz, the lower half of which falls within the C-Band—a frequency range from 3.7–4.2 GHz where the combination of the range of signal transmissions and capacity are optimum.

A graphic shown by AVSI's Andrew Roy during a Dec. 7 NBAA webinar shows power levels of the previous satellite emissions that were occurring in the 3.7–3.98 GHz band that 5G stations in the U.S. will start using next year.

The 5G wireless networks scheduled to be switched on by AT&T and Verizon next month will occur within the 3.7–3.98 GHz frequency range, close to the altimeters. As the FAA indicated in its Dec. 7 AD, while it has heard concerns from airlines, the FAA, and aircraft OEMs over the potential interference issues posed by the deployment of 5G in the C-Band, it has not yet been presented with data or information that shows altimeters are not susceptible to interference.

In the latest instance of an Amazon-related venture attempting to use regulations and legal routes to suppress competition, Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite internet venture wants the FCC to dismiss SpaceX’s application for the next generation of Starlink satellites.

In a document filed with the FCC in late August, Project Kuiper took the significant step of asking the regulatory body to entirely dismiss a SpaceX request to modify plans for the next generation of Starlink satellites. As previously discussed on Teslarati, SpaceX submitted that modification request on August 18th with one clear focus: optimizing Starlink satellites and the constellation’s orbital ‘shells’ to best take advantage of the imminent capabilities of the next-generation Starship launch vehicle. //

Nominally capable of launching at least 100 metric tons (~220,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) in a fully reusable configuration, Starship would boost the mass of Starlink satellites SpaceX could orbit with one launch by a factor of 5-6 or more relative to Falcon 9. In other words, with Starship, SpaceX could feasibly fill out its Starlink constellation at least 5-6 times faster than with Falcon 9. //

In turn, while not unprecedented, SpaceX chose to modify its license application for the second (or third) phase of Starlink satellites – a constellation made up of almost 30,000 spacecraft – to include two distinct options: a constellation where Starship is ready on time and one where it is not. Amazon’s Project Kuiper project, Effectively a Starlink clone helmed by former senior managers and engineers that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk personally ousted in 2018 for being slow and overcautious, Amazon’s Project Kuiper was apparently not happy with the changes its competitor made. //

Published six days later, SpaceX pulls no punches in its response to Amazon, raking the company through the coals for an incessant number (dozens) of filed objections to Starlink while simultaneously failing to address crucial FCC questions about the nature of the Project Kuiper constellation. Bizarrely, SpaceX’s response also accurately points out how Amazon’s legal team seemingly fails to understand SpaceX’s modification request, which poses two mutually exclusive constellation layouts with mostly marginal differences. Amazon’s central argument appears to be that SpaceX actually hasn’t submitted enough information by meticulously detailing two constellation layouts instead of one, claiming that it left “every major detail unsettled.”

Signal boosters are devices that amplify wireless signals to extend coverage. When properly installed, signal boosters can help consumers, wireless service providers, and public safety first responders by extending cell phone coverage to areas that would otherwise have weak signals such as tunnels, subways, inside buildings, and in rural areas. Although signal boosters can improve cell phone coverage, malfunctioning, poorly designed, or improperly installed signal boosters can interfere with wireless networks and cause interference to a range of calls, including emergency and 911 calls.

On February 20, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted new rules governing the design and operation of consumer signal boosters, which are boosters designed to improve coverage in vehicles, homes and small offices.

The new FCC requirements for customers that own and operate a consumer signal booster include:

1. Obtain carrier approval prior to operating a signal booster
2. Register the booster with their service provider

By registering their booster the customer meets both of these requirements.

As the battle was in full swing in 2017, the FCC received over 22 million public comments for and against the repeal, but as it turns out, millions of those comments were not individual communications but spam blasts. A new report from the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, has found that 7.7 million comments in support of net neutrality were generated by just one person, a 19-year-old college student.

And it wasn’t just the pro-net neutrality comments that were found to fraudulent. James’ investigation also discovered a “broadband industry group” spent a lot of money to generate nearly 8.5 million comments in favor of repealing the FCC policy. //

James‘ report generated some recommendations to shore up the public comment process for federal legislation, and (and this part is hilarious) verify the identity of commenters to make sure they come from real people and not spam programs.

The report also outlines recommendations to improve the transparency and accountability of FCC rulemaking proceedings, which allow the public to weigh in on draft proposals of regulation changes. For instance, it suggests mandating that lead generation vendors receive express, informed consent before submitting a public comment on someone’s behalf.

The New York AG report includes comments from people whose names were used without their permission. One expressed disgust “that somebody stole [their] identity and used it to push a viewpoint that [they] do not hold.” One 10-year-old boy’s name, address, and valid e-mail was used without his or his parents’ permission. One other victim may have summed it up best: “These are the kinds of actions that make the population lose faith in the system.”

Yes, you read that right. Democrats think verifying a voter’s identity is racist, but verifying a public comment is absolutely necessary so that people don’t “lose faith in the system.”

“The record is insufficient to determine any reasonable solution that would strike an appropriate balance of competing interests. There is strong opposition to the Commission’s proposals from many commenters in this proceeding, including our nation’s airline pilots and flight attendants.

“A number of commenters argue that the results of international studies and operations may not adequately reflect whether onboard mobile operations can be safely permitted in the United States.

“The record is insufficient to determine any reasonable solution that would strike an appropriate balance of competing interests.”

A 1970 law could throw a major wrench in SpaceX's plans. //

Ramon Ryan, law student at Vanderbilt University, argues in a yet to be published paper that the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) approval for the project might have been unlawful, Scientific American reports.

“There is this law, the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA], which requires federal agencies to take a hard look at their actions,” Ryan told the Scientific American. “The FCC’s lack of review of these commercial satellite projects violates [NEPA], so in the most basic sense, it would be unlawful.”

NEPA was introduced in 1970 to force all federal agencies to take the environmental toll, covering anything from wildlife preservation to the effects on climate, of projects into account — a requirement that can be skirted with a special “categorical exclusion” if there’s proof a certain project doesn’t impact the environment.

The FCC was granted such an exclusion for almost all of its activities, including in space, in 1986.

Ryan argues that such an exclusion would never hold up in court.

“If the FCC were sued over its noncompliance with NEPA, it would likely lose,” Ryan told the Scientific American, as the agency has never actually been able to prove that commercial satellites don’t impact the environment.