AMTA Snapshot Edition 153

AMTA welcomes Minister Conroy?s announcement of planning for Australia?s spectrum future The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) welcomes today?s announcement by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, of a consultation process to plan for the future of mobile phone and wireless broadband licences.

Queensland council fees too high for new towers The Mobile Carriers Forum (MCF) has launched an investigation into local government development application fees for telecommunications towers in Queensland following reports from members that the Sunshine Coast Regional Council was charging carriers over $19,000 ? just for the right to apply for development approval.

AMTA supports factually-based campaign to save Congo gorillas The mobile telecommunications industry shares the Melbourne Zoo?s concerns about the loss of habitat of gorillas in the Congo as a result of illegal mining of coltan ? an ore extracted and refined to tantalum metal and used in a range of electronics equipment.

Independent Disability Equipment Feasibility Study At the Signposts for Change: People with Disabilities and Telecommunications Forum in Melbourne on 16 February 2009, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, announced that he had asked his Department to undertake a feasibility study into whether a disability equipment program independent of carriers should be established. The study included the possibility that mobile phones (+ accessories/software) and Internet access could be included in an independent Disability Equipment Program!

MobileMuster Launches Schools Recycling Challenge Old phones New Fence posts at Labertouche Primary School, Vic MobileMuster, the official recycling program of the mobile phone industry, launched the 2009 ?Old Phones, New Fence Posts? Schools Recycling Challenge at Labertouche Primary School on Wed 22 April 2009.

Bad to the phone WA police and other law enforcement agencies have failed in a bid to impose stringent identity checks on pre-paid mobile phone users that would make it much more difficult for outlaw bikie gangs and other criminals to buy SIM cards using false names, Fairfax Digital reports.