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Telecommunications ACMA moves to accommodate new radio technologies
Telecommunications ACMA moves to accommodate new radio technologies | ACMA moves to accommodate new radio technologies |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Wednesday, 18 January 2006 | |
  
The ACMA is moving to accommodate within its spectrum licensing regime new radiocommunications technologies such as ultra wide band that operate over very wide frequency ranges at very low power.These technologies can generally co-exist with more traditional uses of the spectrum in which they operate because their power levels are so low. The ACMA would like to authorise their use under so called 'class licences'. These licences permit people to buy and use such equipment with have exclusive rights to the spectrum in which they operate or seeking prior authorisation from the ACMA to do so. However the Radiocommunications Act as it currently stands prevents the ACMA for issuing class licences for frequencies covered by spectrum licences (ie where one user has exclusive right to use the designated spectrum). In order to get around this hurdle the ACMA proposes to remove this prohibition on the issue of class licences by repealing section 138 of the Act. In order to address possible concerns that holders of spectrum licences might have about other equipment being used across their frequencies under a class licence, the ACMA also proposes to amend the Act to mandate consultation with interested parties before any class licences are issued. The ACCC says it has already been asked to consider a proposal for the use of ultra wide band radio technology for ground penetrating radar. However applications of UWB with much wider appeal are on the horizon. Last October US chip manufacture Freescale demonstrated the use of UWB for very high speed short range communication, a niche currently filled by Bluetooth. However UWB would provide throughput of 100Mbps compared to Bluetooth's 1Mbps while sill the versatile and well-established Bluetooth protocol stack. The ACMA has issued a discussion paper on its proposal and is seeing comments by 17 February. |
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