ACMA releases mobile broadband spectrum paper

The ACMA has refreshed its strategy for addressing the growth in mobile broadband capacity in a discussion paper released on 10 September.

Titled ‘Beyond 2020 — A spectrum management strategy to address the growth in mobile broadband capacity’ (‘Beyond 2020’), the paper seeks industry feedback on the ACMA’s medium- and longer-term planning approaches to address rising demand for mobile broadband services.

ACMA research commissioned last year identified a $33.8 billion increase in Australia’s economic activity in 2013 resulting from mobile broadband.

Beyond 2020 overhauls the ACMA’s overall strategy on mobile broadband planning, last articulated in its 2011 strategic document ‘Towards 2020 — Future spectrum requirements for mobile broadband’ (‘Towards 2020’).

“For over a decade, the need to accommodate growth in mobile broadband traffic has been the biggest driver of changes in the use of radiofrequency spectrum,” said ACMA Chairman Chris Chapman.

“And because mobile broadband often favours bands that are heavily encumbered due to a range of reasons (including favourable propagation characteristics), how we continue to accommodate future growth will be of vital interest to other industry sectors and users that also critically depend on continuing access to fit-for-purpose spectrum.”

Although there is considerable continuity between the 2011 and 2015 papers insofar as Beyond 2020 asserts the need to use improved technologies and increased infrastructure — as well as additional spectrum — to address the persistent growth in demand for mobile broadband, it signals a number of changes in approach.

“Our experience at the coalface since 2011 has suggested that the ACMA’s earlier focus on explicit, quantitative targets for additional spectrum should be revisited,” said Chapman.

“Experience has shown that the setting of targets — a common approach overseas, as well as locally — fails to take adequate account of the considerable uncertainty inherent in such forecasts.

“While the trend line is crystal clear, projections of traffic growth have proven to be unreliable, and the relationship between growth rates and the need for additional spectrum — as opposed to the better use of existing allocations — is also complex and uncertain.”

The ACMA says it is signalling a shift towards greater reliance on a contingency planning model, where the regulator plans for a range of potential outcomes in terms of mobile broadband capacity growth but nonetheless seeks to enable the right spectrum to be made available, at the right time, depending on the scenarios that are unfolding.

It says the key to such contingency planning approach is the ability of the regulator to work with industry and the international community, more generally, on a range of potential candidate bands at the same time, often over the very extended periods that are required for the development of new, harmonised spectrum uses and subsequent changes in the highest value use of those bands domestically.

Chapman says the change in approach should allow the ACMA to be more flexible and responsive to the rapidly changing spectrum environment by replacing rigid quantitative targets with an approach that offers more regular updates, in consultation with industry, of the planning status of all candidate bands.

Beyond 2020 further elevates the reconfiguration and optimisation of existing mobile broadband allocations onto an equal footing with the refarming of new bands.

“If we are to seriously contemplate the disruption caused by refarming bands currently used for other purposes, and we think that is extremely likely, it is equally vital that existing mobile broadband allocations are optimised to take account of changes in international harmonised arrangements. We all need to sweat existing allocations harder,” said Chapman.

Beyond 2020 contains detailed commentary on the current status of bands that are potentially affected by the rising demand for mobile broadband, which the ACMA will keep up to date in future editions of the annual Five Year Spectrum Outlook (FYSO).

The ACMA is inviting industry comment on the report, with submissions closing on 23 October 2015. Following consideration of responses, it expects to release its updated mobile broadband strategy and associated work programs in early 2016.

Changing circumstances

In the four years that have passed since the publication of Towards 2020, a number of developments have occurred, prompting the ACMA to review and re-articulate its strategies for addressing the growth in mobile broadband capacity. Some of these developments have included:

• completion of the digital dividend auction (in the 700 MHz band) and the resulting unsold lots;
• commissioned research undertaken by the ACMA on demand for wireless access services and the economic benefits of mobile broadband;
• developments internationally and domestically on bands identified in previous ACMA papers, such as the 850 and 900 MHz bands, the 1.5 GHz band and the 3.5 GHz band;
• knowledge gained during preparations for the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15), which is considering the identification of additional spectrum for IMT and mobile broadband under its agenda item 1.1;
• preparations for WRC-15, which will likely consider a possible future WRC-19 agenda item on IMT in bands above 6 GHz under its agenda item 10;
• current studies showing that mobile traffic growth will continue into the future, more than likely at an increasing rate — at least in the medium term;
• evidence that estimates of future mobile broadband traffic prior to the ACMA’s 2011 report tended to overestimate actual traffic growth and consequently tended to overstate the short- to medium-term requirement for additional spectrum.

Stages of the process for consideration of additional spectrum for mobile broadband services and the position of current mobile broadband spectrum planning projects.

The ACMA says that, overall, the evidence suggests that Australia currently has sufficient spectrum available for mobile broadband services in the short to medium term. However, it adds that long lead times for making additional spectrum available and the importance of international harmonisation compel it to press ahead with work in this area if it is to have options available in the very likely scenario that future demand for additional spectrum eventuates.

The ACMA will host a ‘spectrum tune-up’ on mobile broadband spectrum management on 24 September at the ACMA Canberra offices, with video-conference links to the ACMA Melbourne and Sydney offices. Registrations close on 21 September.