Each year the ACMA present the FYSO document to outline their work plans for the coming year and to give forward notice on the plans for the coming years, plus give a report on actions for the current year. ARCIA is always highly interested in this document and we usually contribute as the representative body for our members. This year there is not a high degree of activity forecast in the Land Mobile Radio (LMR) bands, although the changes to the 850 MHz band will impact on some of the 800 MHz services and also some of the fixed links in that band, this work will begin to happen this year and will continue on through until projected completion by 2024.
With the emergence of interest for Enterprise LTE systems and our opinion that this is a market that our existing radio dealers should be starting to consider, we will be following projected changes in some of the LTE bands and pressing for LTE and 5G spectrum to be available for private networks and not just auctioned off in big lumps for the public carriers. This is a market opportunity that should be able to ensure that many of our members can not only retain their present LMR client base, but also expand their business opportunities, so having spectrum available is an imperative for this to happen. We recently responded to an enquiry by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) regarding the concerns over competition for spectrum in the 26 GHz band. Download a copy of ARCIA’s response to ACCC enquiry.
Our ARCIA committee, in conjunction with other organisations, is working towards producing a white paper on the potential transition of LMR users onto private LTE networks in line with the need for spectrum outlined above.