Richard Bean, Acting Chairman, ACMA

Opening address—RadComms 2016

Richard Bean, Acting Chairman, ACMA

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Good morning. It’s great to be here.

It’s been 18 months since our last RadComms conference in 2014, which in our business is a long time. There have been many changes, some significant work by the ACMA to update you on, and there is much to look forward to.

I want to start by showing you a clip I expect many of you have seen, but which illustrates our theme for the conference, and which I can happily watch again and again.

It’s quite spectacular I think because it shows that innovations we have previously imagined but maybe were beginning to think might never happen, are now simply a matter of time.

[Boston Dynamics YouTube video—Atlas, The Next Generation]

I could have shown you a Google car clip or a clip of a Rio Tinto autonomous truck in the Plibara. What would they have had in common? Impossible without radiocommunications.

The clip illustrates a number of the elements in play today woven in with our conference theme, Enabling innovation. Of course, there is the fact of disruption, and there is the foundation for this phenomenon everyone in this room will be very familiar with, which is broadband connectivity.

And there is mobility.

For this mix, spectrum is an essential resource necessary both to meet the challenge of disruption and to support the innovation that will ensure its continued creation.

Recent changes here at the ACMA have been less disruptive and entirely analog—my move into the role of Acting Chairman, with my fellow Member James Cameron appointed Acting Deputy Chair.

Chris Chapman retired at the conclusion of his 10-year tenure at the ACMA and I am delighted to now be leading this terrific organisation. I want to record my thanks to Chris for his 10 years of outstanding leadership.

In fact, Chris will be with us later this morning in his capacity as President-elect of the International Institute of Communications to introduce the Secretary-General of the ITU, Mr Houlin Zhao, who will deliver this morning’s keynote address.

We are honoured to have Mr Zhao with us, along with the Minister for Communications and the Arts, Senator the Hon Mitch Fifield (who is speaking tomorrow morning) and Kim Williams (who is delivering the broadcasting keynote this afternoon).

I would also like to welcome Commissioner Jonathon Coppel from the Productivity Commission and Dr Laura Roberti from Inmarsat—who, like the Secretary-General, has travelled from Switzerland to be here today.

The ACMA in the spectrum space

Now I want to canvass some of the spectrum related work we have done since RadComms 2014 in a range of bands.

Release of 1800 MHz band in regional and remote Australia

First—the release of 1800 MHz spectrum in remote Australia, and the auction of regional 1800 MHz spectrum.

Industry desire was very keen for access as soon as practicable and we opened bidding on 30 November last year.

After an ACMA record of 179 rounds, the hammer fell on 4 February 2016 with Optus, Telstra, TPG and Vodafone all securing spectrum. 1400 MHz was sold for a total of approximately $540 million.

The ACMA has also revised regulation of the 1800 MHz band in remote areas. We have been able to offer quick access through apparatus licences, but segmented, so that spectrum will be available for both telecommunications companies and others like infrastructure providers, where they need it.

400 MHz implementation

In the 400 MHz band, the ACMA a major cooperative effort has reached the half-way point this last year in implementing some important new arrangements—perhaps most importantly delivering harmonised government spectrum in the band, a critical element in achieving nationwide interoperability.

Migration of existing government services is now well advanced, with opportunities being realised to rationalise wireless communication requirements across multiple government agencies.

And, I can announce today the creation of a flexible new licensing option for government licensees in the 400 MHzband.

Under this option, a state government for example, will be able to consolidate its thousands of licences down to just one, dramatically reducing management overhead, providing additional technical flexibility and enabling a more coordinated approach to spectrum use.

It’s an opportunity to centralise and rationalise wireless requirements across multiple agencies, with the potential for greater economy and efficiency in spectrum use and delivery of communications capacity.

Completion of review of 800/900 MHz band

In the 803–960 MHz band, we are now moving into an implementation phase, following a major review.

Recently announced outcomes of this review included some 30 MHz to be repurposed for new mobile broadband services.

In the context of 4G-standardised, sub-1 GHz spectrum, this in itself is significant.

But, we have also planned a new, dedicated frequency band to support the innovation and proliferation of the Internet of Things including machine-to-machine and other applications.

Access to this new allocation of between 5 and 7 MHz from 928MHz will carry conditions that are designed to limit access to a specific class of low power, low duty cycle applications.

It is a complex frequency band that accommodates a broad range of services, having historically provided the very first commercial analog and digital cellular services in Australia.

And this complexity means some operators will be adversely affected by the implementation of these changes

So, we have put together a long and detailed implementation plan that aims to minimise these adverse effects, building on the lessons in consultation and stakeholder engagement learnt in our work on the 400 MHz band.

Outcomes and the implementation approach to this work will be discussed here on Thursday, with more detail and discussions at the Spectrum tune-up on Friday.

WRC-15

Before I move on from the recent past, I must mention WRC-15.

Preparing for and succeeding at the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference, as many of you will have experienced first-hand, is the spectrum management equivalent of a marathon.There are years of preparation, followed by a gruelling four-week finale.

Some of you will have attended at this venue yesterday the ACMA WRC-15 Industry Debrief, so I won’t try and cover what was said there—and we will hear from Secretary-General Zhou of course and from others on this subject too

Some very hard work on some tough issues came to fruition, for example:

more spectrum identified for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)

an allocation to support global flight tracking for civil aviation

new international regulatory conditions supporting broadband for public protection and disaster relief communications

and a large slab of spectrum freed up for global satellite earth observations to track tsunami and earthquake activity and the effects of climate change.

I’d like to congratulate all members of the Australian delegation on their commitment and their achievements.

Release of the ACMA mobile broadband strategy and work plan

Now, just a few weeks ago, we saw the release of the ACMA mobile broadband strategy and work plan.

We’ve set out those bands we will be focussing on and the work that will be done on them—from monitoring, through initial investigation, preliminary planning to re-farming.

This represents an important shift, from quantitative goals in planning for mobile broadband capacity growth, to a contingency planning model and a clear indication to the world of what work is coming up in the year ahead.

This work will be the subject of our first session this morning and I’ll leave detailed discussion to my colleagues who’ll be speaking to you shortly.

Most significantly in the coming year, work on the Spectrum Review.

That is the review of the Radcomms Act currently under way—we will hear more about this from the Minster tomorrow morning.

The ACMA welcomed the conclusion and outcomes of the Spectrum Review at that time and we are working closely with the Department to implement its recommendations, which embody a major rethink of Australia’s spectrum policy and management framework.

The centrepiece of the reform is the establishment of a Single Licensing System to replace the current tripartite licensing system set up in the Radiocommunications Act 1992, under which more than 150,000 licences are issued at present—and that number alone gives you an idea of the scale of the implementation task.

It is a challenge, but one the ACMA relishes, and we have established a dedicated team in response.

Reporting directly to the General Manager of the Communications Infrastructure Division, Giles Tanner, joined by Deputy Chairman, James Cameron, I am confident that this taskforce will bring the discipline, energy and focus needed to drive the ACMA’s share of this significant program of change.

Consultation with stakeholders

As always in the work we do, a critical component in how the ACMA will realise the vision and objectives of the Spectrum Review is through ongoing consultation with those interested and affected.

So let me affirm the ACMA’s commitment to consultation, cooperation and collaboration on spectrum matters more generally … which brings me to our Five-year spectrum outlook—FYSO.

FYSO is a vital component in our consultation and planning framework for spectrum management.

Created and released for the first time in 2009, this document—which is unique among spectrum regulators around the world—provides a broad strategic outline and an indication of work prioritisation and timeframes over a rolling five-year work plan, informed by feedback invited along the way. This has, from time to time, been supplemented by more detailed annual work plans.

And in that respect, we are pleased to be adapting FYSO to meet one of the key recommendations of the Spectrum Review: That the ACMA provide to the Minister an annual work program, prepared in consultation with industry, including key priorities over a three to five-year timeframe.

All of this is directed to enabling innovation, to reducing regulatory burden and to supporting spectrum users as technology, services and business models continue to change and evolve in the national interest.

So there are big changes ahead, but we want to be bringing you along with us each step of the way. It is essential that the ACMA engage constructively with everyone with a stake in this side or our business, and we will.

Research and evidence gathering

Before I say some more about our work program for the year ahead, a few words about the evidentiary basis for our decision-making.

It is a given that the media and communications sectors are experiencing structural change at service, network and device levels, and this is reflected in evolving consumer behaviour and expectations.

It is fundamental that the regulator must understand these trends, and understand the business, consumer and citizen contexts in which they occur.

The ACMA has used and will continue to use its own targeted research program to assess and monitor these developments in the external environment to identify the impact of regulatory settings on potential market developments and scenarios.

Two recent examples are papers published on 5G services and the Internet of Things.

What else? A small selection:

Mobile phone jammers in correctional centres

A trial of mobile phone jamming at Lithgow Correctional Centre, NSW has been in operation since September 2013, and has been extended to November 2018, and work on another has commenced.

The ACMA is also working with CSNSW and Telstra, Vodafone and Optus, to examine whether the Goulburn Correctional Centre is a suitable location for a trial to assess whether the benefits of operating a mobile phone jammer in a prison in a more densely-populated area, such as Goulburn, outweigh the risks of interference to mobile phone networks—very real risks, for example, to citizen access to emergency services.

Digital radio in regional Australia

The ACMA is also working actively with industry to facilitate the rollout of digital radio into regional areas of Australia, in line with the recommendation of the Digital Radio Report to establish a joint government-industry Digital Radio Planning Committee for Regional Australia. James Cameron will be chairing this committee, which brings the radio industry’s national, commercial and community sectors together.

I anticipate that the Canberra and Darwin trial services will be the first regional services to be licenced on a permanent basis.

Spectrum management system and customer self-service

The ACMA has been working to replace RADCOM, our ageing radiocommunications licensing and frequency assigning toolsets that many of you would be familiar with.

Major elements of the new SPECTRA system have been introduced over the last couple of years to support spectrum licensing and, more recently, apparatus licensing.

This is an enormous job, and hasn’t been without some significant challenges. We thank those of you affected by these changes for your support and patience.

We’ve been particularly fortunate to have had a great deal of assistance and support from the accredited persons, as well as ARCIA and the WIA.

We’re looking forward to a vastly improved system, which integrates all of the planning and licensing aspects of the ACMA’s spectrum management work.

Satellite pricing

In response to representations about satellite tax structures, last year the ACMA commissioned Plum Consulting to review of apparatus licences taxes associated with some satellite services.

The consultancy is looking at the base price levels for satellite services in the K-a band (that is 17.3 to 51.4 GHz). The work is considering issues like the likely demand for the spectrum in the medium term, levels of congestionand international benchmarks.

Our staff expect to receive a final report shortly and we will announce our plans for taxes in the K-a band once the Authority has had an opportunity to digest the report findings.

Compliance and enforcement activities

I would like to thank those who participated in yesterday’s tune-up on compliance priorities—your contributions will inform our compliance priorities for the next financial year.

We prefer to work collaboratively with to achieve voluntarily compliance, but we can, and will, take enforcement action when we have.

Only a fortnight ago, ACMA inspectors successfully executed a search warrant with the assistance of NSW Police in relation to the operation of a ‘pirate’ FM radio station. We are now preparing a brief of evidence for the DPP.

Conclusion

Let me conclude by emphasising the ACMA’s commitment to open and reciprocal communication and highlighting the importance of RadComms, the FYSO and our published work plans to that engagement.

This gathering is a valuable ‘peak forum’ for spectrum that provides an important opportunity for dialogue with the ACMA leadership team, as well as with your peers.

Now, before I hand over to my fellow Member Rosemary Sinclair to lead Session 1, I should mention a number of things we have coming up:

If you are a licensee or otherwise interested in the 400, 800 or 900 MHz bands, I encourage you to attend the Spectrum tune-up about those bands on Friday.

And, while WRC-15 was only a few months ago, and many of you are still recovering, our preparation for WRC-19 will get underway this year. It is the beginning of another marathon so, if you are looking for an opportunity to improve (or prove) your spectrum management endurance, now is the time to get involved.

And, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to understand our spectrum planning work program, we will hold a related industry briefing in the second quarter of this year.

We will be in touch with details of these two activities closer to the time.

But for now, on the subject of mobile broadband session, the next two hours will introduce you to the details of the ACMA’s mobile broadband strategy and work-plan, as well as provide industry perspectives and reaction to it.

My thanks to all of you for coming along and contributing to our discussion about spectrum management over the next two days and welcome to RadComms 2016.

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