The looming expiration of telecommunications carriers’ radiofrequency spectrum licenses will shape a “critically important” spectrum overhaul that will pave the way for 6G mobile services, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has announced in floating its latest five-year plan.
That plan – published as a draft Five-Year Spectrum Outlook 2024-29 (FYSO) that is now open for public consultation – will include close consideration of policies such as the rules managing the 1.9GHz radiofrequency band.
Those rules were established to support cordless telephones in 1996 under a previous plan, sunsetted a year ago, and are now being reworked to allow coexistence of a range of short-range applications such as wireless concert microphones and railway control systems.
Also on the agenda are potential future uses for the upper 6GHz frequency band and allocations of spectrum in the 3.4GHz to 4.0GHz range, including the looming opening of applications for area-wide licenses in the 3.8GHz spectrum band – which will allow businesses to use 5G mobile technology to roll out their own high-speed mobile networks in industrial, agricultural, and other areas.
“Spectrum management isn’t discussed a lot in Australia, but it plays an enormous role in our everyday lives,“ ACMA authority member and spectrum lead Adam Suckling said in launching the new FYSO.
“Spectrum supports the most critical infrastructure that drives business and our national economy,” he said, “so it’s incredibly important that we consult as widely as possible on its future use.”
Demand for radiofrequency spectrum, the FYSO says, “is driven by Australians’ appetite for advanced connectivity” including Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, cloud and edge computing, clean-energy solutions and “enhanced network capabilities” – including high-speed technologies including 5G mobiles, new Wi-Fi 6 and the even newer Wi-Fi 7, and direct to mobile connectivity with low earth orbit (LEO) satellite services like Starlink and Amazon’s emerging LEO competitor.
“The management and allocation of scarce spectrum resources… can have a significant impact on the nature of competition in downstream markets that rely on spectrum,” the FYSO notes, adding that spectrum holdings “directly influence an operator’s network capacity, service quality and its potential for entry into new geographic markets… “making it a significant determinant in an operator’s competitive ability.”
Spring cleaning for 6G
For all the spectrum housekeeping outlined in the FYSO, the elephant in the room is the ongoing development of 6G mobile services, which gained momentum in December after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) published a formal IMT-2030 Framework that kickstarted the process of formally developing 6G technology.
That technology – which the ITU believes will “integrate sensing and AI-related capabilities into communication” and “drive the next wave of digital economic growth” – is envisioned to support applications such as ubiquitous intelligence, ubiquitous computing, replication of the physical world as digital twins; smart industrial applications; and more.
And while it’s not yet clear in which frequency bands 6G will operate – the ITU has floated options ranging from sub 1GHz frequencies to 92GHz and above – ACMA will need to keep one eye on that process to ensure the technology can be rolled out in Australia once available.
The looming expiration of around three-quarters of the “highly valued” spectrum licenses – for which major telecommunications carriers spent billions to deliver 3G, 4G and 5G mobile services – will give ACMA the opportunity to remodel spectrum allocations in anticipation of 6G mobile.
Noting that this is the first time it has been charged with considering the future of those spectrum licenses, the agency called the upcoming process “one of the most critically important issues facing the telecommunications sector over the coming decade.”
By shaping the availability of wireless services in different areas – spectrum licenses are generally tied to specific geographic areas – ACMA’s decisions about the management of the “finite public resource” that is radiofrequency spectrum not only shape the availability of wireless services in different areas, but allow it to support government priorities such as the improvement of wireless services in regional areas.
Improving regional communications was one of numerous priorities laid out in the Statement of Intent through which ACMA responded to operational directives issued by the new Albanese government in late 2022.
ACMA not only wants feedback from incumbent telcos about their plans for their licensed spectrum – an issue that has previously created sensitivities as the government considered reining in Telstra’s market dominance or even building its own national infrastructure – but wants to hear from “potential new users on alternative uses” and ways to improve the efficiency and coverage of mobile services to benefit all Australians.
“We are talking about very high value spectrum, ideal for facilitating 5G mobile internet and even 6G as we look ahead over the next decade and beyond,” Suckling said.
“These licenses will significantly shape the future of Australia’s telecommunications landscape, so it’s important we include as many views in the decision-making process as we can.”
