The Biden administration's top transportation and aviation officials have asked the CEOs of wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon to delay the imminent rollout of new 5G technology for two weeks.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Steve Dickson, the Federal Aviation Administration administrator, urged AT&T's John Stankey and Hans Vestberg of Verizon in a letter Friday to push back their scheduled launch of 5G services Wednesday due to concerns over airline flight disruptions.

While recognizing the "significant investment" the wireless companies have made in upgrading their networks, Buttigieg and Dickson countered that the economic stakes for the aviation industry and the potential disruptions faced the traveling public are also significant, "particularly with the ongoing stress and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic."

Citing ongoing concerns by airlines that 5G networks operating in the C-Band of the wireless spectrum could disrupt aircraft radar altimeters, the administration instead offered a "near-term solution for advancing the co-existence of 5G deployment in the C-Band and safe flight operations."

The temporary fix would include delaying the carriers' rollout of the technology for "an additional short period of no more than two weeks" following an earlier agreement on a 30-day delay through Jan. 5.

Also as part of the proposal, Buttigieg and Dickson asked the companies to put off deploying the technology near "priority airports."

The FAA warned last month that 5G signals could produce missing or erroneous altimeter readings, while the wireless industry maintains that power levels used in their networks are too low to generate interference.

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