2nd April 2025
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is seeking feedback on our preliminary views on spectrum covered by expiring spectrum licences.The spectrum underpins mobile markets and is used for coverage of live news and public transport services.
See all consultation documents
There is no reference in this consultation to the 600mhz band or the low interference potential device (LIPD) license, which is freely available to use wireless audio devices, other than in one of the supporting papers on competing and complementary demand for spectrum. Two stakeholders (Boeing and the Australasian Association for Uncrewed Systems / AAUS) expressed support for considering expiring spectrum license (ESL) spectrum for use by Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) aka drones.
We have spectrum and licensing options in place to support commercial and consumer uses of RPAS. Many RPAS applications can be supported by the low interference potential devices (LIPD) class licence, and users can access the spectrum using a class licence at no cost.
The only reference to the 600MHz band, one of the areas of interest for users of wireless audio devices, is in a supplementary paper which describes the current situtation (excerpt below).
Future of broadcasting and possible digital dividend
Australia’s digital television services are delivered using spectrum in the 600 MHz band. In 2024, the minister announced that the government will work closely with industry on a plan to secure the future of free-to-air television, which will involve exploring pathways for the future of television, shaped by the possibility of realising a digital dividend. The minister has emphasised that the government has not identified, or decided to yield, a digital dividend.
The 600 MHz band is also available for some services under class licensing. Current television channel arrangements include spectrum inside and outside of the 600 MHz band. A potential digital dividend could be realised by consolidating some of the multiplexes used by free-to-air television services, and repurposing the portions of spectrum that are planned, but mostly unused, for broadcasting, to free up 84 MHz of spectrum in the 600 MHz band.
Internationally:
• Both the US and Canada have consolidated 600 MHz broadcast spectrum, culminating in newly available spectrum being licensed for WBB services.
• Ofcom, on the other hand, has indicated that it considers that the need for digital terrestrial television’s use of the 600 MHz band in the UK will continue until at least 2030 and probably beyond.
In Australia, the 600 MHz band remains at the monitoring stage of the ACMA’s bandplanning framework, meaning that we are maintaining an awareness of international and domestic developments, with an interest in any potential changes.
Planning decisions for the 600 MHz are relevant to ESLs due to the band’s capacity to be reallocated for other uses, including MBB, and its wide-area and local-area use-cases.
The availability of additional low-band spectrum for MNOs, or newly available spectrum for prospective alternative licensees, may be relevant to our consideration of how licensing arrangements for ESL spectrum fulfil the long-term public interest. However, the government’s exploration of pathways for the future of television is likely to be a complex process extending into the mid- to longer-term, meaning that the extent to which we can take its outcomes into consideration in the ESL process is uncertain.
The consultation on ESL closes on 25th June 2025.
