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Wow, this along with potential interference problems in weather radar [0], it's obvious the FCC bungled allocating the 5G spectrum. What a shame that they gave

Wow, this along with potential interference problems in weather radar [0], it's obvious the FCC bungled allocating the 5G spectrum. What a shame that they gave into industry pressure over other practical considerations. However, it doesn't surprise me that the FAA, which allowed the Boeing 737Max fiasco, is back here coming to Boeing's defense. What happens when 2 captured regulators collide? Edit: added spacing and changed "radio" to "radar" for clarity [0] https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/737919100/forecasters-caution-5g-will-interfere-with-gathering-weather-data https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/737919100/forecasters-caution...

vmception 5y ago
> What happens when 2 captured regulators collide? When moneyed interests compete it becomes the same as their being no moneyed interests An average case outcome Not obvious what would happen here though, just a general reality that mostly undermines the “rich shadow organization controlling everything” idea
- dogleash 5y ago
  >When moneyed interests compete it becomes the same as their being no moneyed interests No. That's very incorrect. For example: Moneyed Interest #1 wants A & B, Moneyed Interest #2 wants A & Not-B. It's entirely possible that Not-A is a bad business model, but is also in the interest of the citizenry at large to have Not-A be law.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Ok, you’re right they can have niches and get their model regulations
LeoPanthera 5y ago
For clarity, "weather radio" is usually used as the name for the broadcast service operated by the NOAA on 162MHz. This remains unaffected. You are describing the 23.8GHz radar used by satellites.
- ameminator 5y ago
  Sorry about that. I was thinking of radar as a subset of weather-related radio. I'll fix that for clarity. Thanks for pointing it out.
hammock 5y ago
> What happens when 2 captured regulators collide? The FCC is more political than the FAA, but the FAA more critical to US economy. As of right now it seems the FAA is winning.
- bb88 5y ago
  I don't believe that anymore after the 737-Max incident (Downfall on Netflix is good btw). The FAA serves Boeing -- and no one else right now.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I watched Downfall and I have to say that while they technically avoided lying about the actions of the EA302 crew, the storyline they presented doesn’t match the flight data recorder data. Downfall says “the crew knew about the MCAS risk, figured out they had an MCAS fault, applied Boeing’s checklist response, and still the airplane crashed”. All four of those things are independent and true facts. What is omitted (and readily available to the filmmakers) is that EA302’s thrust setting remained inappropriately high (94% N1, takeoff thrust), causing an excessive airspeed, causing the crew to be unable to return the stabilizer to a normal trim setting by hand after using the electric cutout, which led them to the (correct) conclusion that they should turn the electric stab trim back on and command aircraft-nose-up via the electric system, which they did. That means that they undid the checklist response. Then, after doing that successfully for a short period of time, they stopped commanding nose-up trim and left the stab trim powered up (contravening the checklist), allowing MCAS to continue to command the fatal nose down trim. So they got dealt an emergency situation and the airplane crashed. Boeing has some blame here, but Downfall’s presentation of the events as the crew responding correctly with Boeing’s checklist would make most politicians blush and worry they’d be caught lying.
    - bb88 5y ago
      If you believe that MCAS caused the first and contributed to the second, like I do, then at what point does the FAA not step in? You could say Gravity contributed I guess to both crashes, and Boeing is not responsible for that, but the difference here is that Boeing deliberately hid the existence of MCAS to the pilots to avoid simulator training.
w0mbat 5y ago
This is not true. 5G uses spectrum way outside the band that RADAR altimeters are supposed to be using. Boeing had years to fix their shoddy RADAR equipment, and the fix now can be as simple as fitting a high-pass filter.
- ameminator 5y ago
  If 5G was using spectrum way outside the band that these altimeters are supposed to be using... then we wouldn't have this issue. Those 737s aren't new, they certainly had permission to use that spectrum for years and while they may have had years to fix their equipment, it's certainly not as trivial as "add a high pass filter". Now, I do agree that this should have been caught 5-10 years ago, when the standard was being developed. Boeing's incompetence wouldn't surprise me, which is probably why we see "FAA says problems for Boeing in 5G" as the headline, instead of "Aircraft companies warn of interference in safety, navigation equipment, ask FCC to reconsider" as the headline, 5 years ago. Although, as noted in the article, it seems that the FAA has been warning about the conflict - I'm just surprised that the FCC would go ahead with 5G if they had been flagged early enough. So here we are, the FCC, in its negligence, assigned conflicting portions of the spectrum, Boeing, in its incompetence, didn't catch it - and now it's a big mess.
  - maxsilver 5y ago
    >they should have caught this 5-10 years ago They mostly did. They've been warning about this for 3+ years now (see this report from the FCC back in September and October 2019) https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/102214765103/AVSI%20RA%20Interim%20OOB%20Interference%20Report.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/102214765103/AVSI%20RA%20Interi... They couldn't have warned folks about more than a year or so sooner than that, because the spectrum bands for 5G hadn't even been fully decided prior to it. (The public notice of band reconfiguration only got announced back in May 2019)
    - ummonk 5y ago
      Yup, they should suspend the rollout due to noncompliance by airplane manufacturers and fine said manufacturers for the delay.
stingrae 5y ago
Note weather radar impacts some channels of 5GHz WiFi resulting in some FCC/ETSI requirements that that WiFi be able to detect it and back off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_frequency_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_frequency_selection
tempnow987 5y ago
It's not obvious at all. Boeing shouldn't be using these frequencies and this has been 10 years in the making. Boeing should fix their equipment to operate within its assigned range (+ the huge guard bands they gave them for no real reason). This is like your neighbor driving onto your lawn, and then demanding you move out of your house. They should drive right back onto their lawn.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  What about older planes? I'm not sure if boeing should be responsible for retrofitting all of their older planes just because of change that happened years later.
  - tssva 5y ago
    Boeing's altimeters should have always operated within the frequency bands allocated to them and been resistant to interference from other bands. These altimeters are operating outside the specification they should have met when deployed. This is an utter failure on the part of aircraft manufacturers, airlines and the FAA. They are all screaming loudly to try to shift the public perception to this being an issue created by the FCC and telecom companies.
    - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
      >Boeing's altimeters should have always operated within the frequency bands allocated to them and been resistant to interference from other bands. These altimeters are operating outside the specification they should have met when deployed. What is your basis for this extraordinary claim?
      - jaywalk 5y ago
        What's extraordinary about the claim? The guard band between 5G and radio altimeters is ~200MHz, which is massive. If your filtering can't handle signals over 200MHz away from what you're looking at, then it's garbage filtering.
radicaldreamer 5y ago
How is the FCC "captured"? They're out there making a killing on auctioning out these frequencies with massive guard bands and are extremely patient with legacy users of those frequencies.
mlindner 5y ago
This isn't on the FCC but instead the FAA dragging their feet.
tedunangst 5y ago
If I use 11/8 for private network addresses because it's easier than trying to keep everything in 10/8, and then DoD starts advertising those routes on the public internet, did the DoD bungle their rollout?
- p_l 5y ago
  This is more as if DoD accidentally included bits of 10./8 in their announcements.

vmception 5y ago

> What happens when 2 captured regulators collide? When moneyed interests compete it becomes the same as their being no moneyed interests An average case outcome Not obvious what would happen here though, just a general reality that mostly undermines the “rich shadow organization controlling everything” idea

dogleash 5y ago
>When moneyed interests compete it becomes the same as their being no moneyed interests No. That's very incorrect. For example: Moneyed Interest #1 wants A & B, Moneyed Interest #2 wants A & Not-B. It's entirely possible that Not-A is a bad business model, but is also in the interest of the citizenry at large to have Not-A be law.
- vmception 5y ago
  Ok, you’re right they can have niches and get their model regulations

LeoPanthera 5y ago

For clarity, "weather radio" is usually used as the name for the broadcast service operated by the NOAA on 162MHz. This remains unaffected. You are describing the 23.8GHz radar used by satellites.

ameminator 5y ago
Sorry about that. I was thinking of radar as a subset of weather-related radio. I'll fix that for clarity. Thanks for pointing it out.

hammock 5y ago

> What happens when 2 captured regulators collide? The FCC is more political than the FAA, but the FAA more critical to US economy. As of right now it seems the FAA is winning.

bb88 5y ago
I don't believe that anymore after the 737-Max incident (Downfall on Netflix is good btw). The FAA serves Boeing -- and no one else right now.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I watched Downfall and I have to say that while they technically avoided lying about the actions of the EA302 crew, the storyline they presented doesn’t match the flight data recorder data. Downfall says “the crew knew about the MCAS risk, figured out they had an MCAS fault, applied Boeing’s checklist response, and still the airplane crashed”. All four of those things are independent and true facts. What is omitted (and readily available to the filmmakers) is that EA302’s thrust setting remained inappropriately high (94% N1, takeoff thrust), causing an excessive airspeed, causing the crew to be unable to return the stabilizer to a normal trim setting by hand after using the electric cutout, which led them to the (correct) conclusion that they should turn the electric stab trim back on and command aircraft-nose-up via the electric system, which they did. That means that they undid the checklist response. Then, after doing that successfully for a short period of time, they stopped commanding nose-up trim and left the stab trim powered up (contravening the checklist), allowing MCAS to continue to command the fatal nose down trim. So they got dealt an emergency situation and the airplane crashed. Boeing has some blame here, but Downfall’s presentation of the events as the crew responding correctly with Boeing’s checklist would make most politicians blush and worry they’d be caught lying.
  - bb88 5y ago
    If you believe that MCAS caused the first and contributed to the second, like I do, then at what point does the FAA not step in? You could say Gravity contributed I guess to both crashes, and Boeing is not responsible for that, but the difference here is that Boeing deliberately hid the existence of MCAS to the pilots to avoid simulator training.

w0mbat 5y ago

This is not true. 5G uses spectrum way outside the band that RADAR altimeters are supposed to be using. Boeing had years to fix their shoddy RADAR equipment, and the fix now can be as simple as fitting a high-pass filter.

ameminator 5y ago
If 5G was using spectrum way outside the band that these altimeters are supposed to be using... then we wouldn't have this issue. Those 737s aren't new, they certainly had permission to use that spectrum for years and while they may have had years to fix their equipment, it's certainly not as trivial as "add a high pass filter". Now, I do agree that this should have been caught 5-10 years ago, when the standard was being developed. Boeing's incompetence wouldn't surprise me, which is probably why we see "FAA says problems for Boeing in 5G" as the headline, instead of "Aircraft companies warn of interference in safety, navigation equipment, ask FCC to reconsider" as the headline, 5 years ago. Although, as noted in the article, it seems that the FAA has been warning about the conflict - I'm just surprised that the FCC would go ahead with 5G if they had been flagged early enough. So here we are, the FCC, in its negligence, assigned conflicting portions of the spectrum, Boeing, in its incompetence, didn't catch it - and now it's a big mess.
- maxsilver 5y ago
  >they should have caught this 5-10 years ago They mostly did. They've been warning about this for 3+ years now (see this report from the FCC back in September and October 2019) https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/102214765103/AVSI%20RA%20Interim%20OOB%20Interference%20Report.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/102214765103/AVSI%20RA%20Interi... They couldn't have warned folks about more than a year or so sooner than that, because the spectrum bands for 5G hadn't even been fully decided prior to it. (The public notice of band reconfiguration only got announced back in May 2019)
  - ummonk 5y ago
    Yup, they should suspend the rollout due to noncompliance by airplane manufacturers and fine said manufacturers for the delay.

stingrae 5y ago

Note weather radar impacts some channels of 5GHz WiFi resulting in some FCC/ETSI requirements that that WiFi be able to detect it and back off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_frequency_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_frequency_selection

tempnow987 5y ago

It's not obvious at all. Boeing shouldn't be using these frequencies and this has been 10 years in the making. Boeing should fix their equipment to operate within its assigned range (+ the huge guard bands they gave them for no real reason). This is like your neighbor driving onto your lawn, and then demanding you move out of your house. They should drive right back onto their lawn.

mardifoufs 5y ago
What about older planes? I'm not sure if boeing should be responsible for retrofitting all of their older planes just because of change that happened years later.
- tssva 5y ago
  Boeing's altimeters should have always operated within the frequency bands allocated to them and been resistant to interference from other bands. These altimeters are operating outside the specification they should have met when deployed. This is an utter failure on the part of aircraft manufacturers, airlines and the FAA. They are all screaming loudly to try to shift the public perception to this being an issue created by the FCC and telecom companies.
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    >Boeing's altimeters should have always operated within the frequency bands allocated to them and been resistant to interference from other bands. These altimeters are operating outside the specification they should have met when deployed. What is your basis for this extraordinary claim?
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      What's extraordinary about the claim? The guard band between 5G and radio altimeters is ~200MHz, which is massive. If your filtering can't handle signals over 200MHz away from what you're looking at, then it's garbage filtering.

radicaldreamer 5y ago

How is the FCC "captured"? They're out there making a killing on auctioning out these frequencies with massive guard bands and are extremely patient with legacy users of those frequencies.

mlindner 5y ago

This isn't on the FCC but instead the FAA dragging their feet.

tedunangst 5y ago

If I use 11/8 for private network addresses because it's easier than trying to keep everything in 10/8, and then DoD starts advertising those routes on the public internet, did the DoD bungle their rollout?

p_l 5y ago
This is more as if DoD accidentally included bits of 10./8 in their announcements.