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Networks want assurances on spectrum reform

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield proposes allowing broadcasters to trade or lease surplus spectrum.

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Networks have cautiously welcomed the government’s plans to reform the country’s spectrum regime, but want further assurances, including on pricing.

Yesterday Communications Minister Mitch Fifield released a consultation paper on a new Radiocommunications Act, which included allowing broadcasters to trade or lease surplus spectrum.

“The government is committed to ensuring that broadcast licence holders will continue to have certainty of access to spectrum to deliver their broadcasting services,” Senator Fifield said.

“Like other spectrum users, broadcasters will be able to share, trade or lease all or part of their spectrum, subject to the conditions of their licence.

“The proposed broadcasting amendments will require consequential amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act.”

A move to a single licensing framework will encourage efficient and innovative use of spectrum, Senator Fifield said.

“As licences become more generic in nature, they are more easily shared, traded and leased. To this end, the legislation will set out core parameters that a licence must address, such as frequency and geographic area of operation, licence duration, rights of renewal and pricing,” he said.

“We welcome Minister Fifield’s comments that under the new reforms, existing broadcasters will have certainty of access to spectrum. However, we need to understand the proposed approach to key issues such as pricing, length of tenure, and renewal rights under the proposed new framework,” a FreeTV statement read.

“Virtually every Australian household has access to commercial free-to-air television, with over 13 million Australians watching commercial free TV every day. More than 70% of people rely exclusively on free-to-air broadcasters for their television services.

“The high value of social and cultural uses of spectrum, including by free-to-air broadcasters, must not be overlooked as part of the reform process.”

FreeTV says it is critical that any spectrum reforms:

  • Recognise the ongoing importance to viewers across Australia of high quality, interference-
    free commercial television broadcasting services; and
  • Provides certainty of access for television broadcasters so they can continue to invest and
    innovate to address the changing viewing habits of Australians.

Source: ComputerWorld, The Australian

3 Responses

  1. So Free TV is sticking to what it has advocated for 20 years. Rent seeking by trying to pressure government into giving it free spectrum and locking up as much as possible away from competitors who have better uses for it. How on earth does more shopping and lifestyle channels count as “high quality” broadcasting, they simply make money for the networks.

  2. FM Radio stations sub-lease part of their spectrum to 3rd parties, 2 SCA sub-carriers per station, so there’s no reason that TV shouldn’t follow suit. 9Life, 7Racing, 7Flix and the “datacasting” channels could be sold off. With the further use of MP4 encoding and less simulcasting, more spectrum would be available for sale. PayTV in NZ started up as a TV channel that needed a special decoder, now that we’re digital that service is much easier to implement. Foxtel owning a chunk of ch10 could mean anything!

    1. I suspect discussion of it here and elsewhere will get confused by different lay meanings of ‘spectrum’, ‘bandwidth’, etc. For instance, currently a TV network gets a chunk of spectrum taking up 7MHz RF bandwidth at each site, which gives them ~23Mbps digital bandwidth, etc, etc…

      My quick reading of the consultation paper is that it’s unclear if it covers Perplexed’s scenario of sharing/leasing services within the allocated chunk of spectrum. Sect 17 talks about it in the intro, but the proposals don’t specifically cover it – except that moving TV broadcasting & licence plans from ministerial to general planning makes it ACMA’s problem, not the government’s.

      Overall, it looks more like it’s setting up for (a) changes to the reach & ownership rules, (b) crippling ACMA further (e.g. approval only, not policy setting), and (c) shielding the minister from blame…

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