Communications Day reported this week that Australia’s two largest mobile carriers have called on regulators and the government to provide more certainty on licences and more timely policy decisions regarding spectrum allocation or risk putting new investments in the sector on hold.

Speaking on the opening day of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s two-day Rad- Comms conference in Melbourne, regulatory specialists from both Telstra and Optus warned that growing mobile data use made timely decisions more imperative.

“The time for green papers and consultation is over and some decisions need to be made,” said Telstra acting executive director of regulatory affairs, Jane van Beelen, who noted that the amount of mobile data traffic on Telstra’s network had doubled in the past eight months.

In an earlier speech to the conference, communications minister Stephen Conroy noted that his department was now analysing industry submissions to its green paper on digital dividend spectrum and also acknowledged industry concerns regarding licence renewals.

But Optus director of government and corporate affairs Maha Krishnapillai suggested that the industry does not have enough visibility into the processes for the future licensing regime despite billions of dollars of investment being at stake.

“When spectrum is scarce, when there is uncertainty over the reissue price of incumbent licences and the prospect of the release of new mobile broadband spectrum holdings, investment planning processes go on hold,” Krishnapillai told conference delegates. “This inevitably leads to a delay in next generation network deployment and the associated flow on benefits to consumers and the economy.”

“From an industry perspective, I cannot underestimate the importance of the timely finalisation of policy decisions and licensing regimes that take into account and align with commercial and technological road maps,” he added.

He said one of the key examples was the reallocation of the 2.5GHz band, which he said from the mobile industry’s perspective had taken too long to resolve.

Telstra’s van Beelen also agreed on the need for 2.5 GHz reallocation as well as the 700MHz band, adding that its use by the mobile sector was in line with the government’s and the ACMA’s goals of making public benefit the main driver of efficient spectrum allocation.

“For the communications industry to undertake the required planning and implementation required for us to most efficiently use the digital dividend and 2.5GHz spectrum we need certainty that we have the option to acquire this spectrum through auction,” she said. “Only when we have this certainty will we be able to plan, fund and deploy our future networks to meet the ongoing growth of next generation mobile broadband networks.”

She also called for urgent clarity on licence renewal. “Without licence renewal, multi-billion dollar businesses and multi-million customer services are at risk. As a mobile carrier, Telstra is seeking the certainty that the rest of the spectrum framework promotes on this issue,” she said.

One of the challenges the mobile industry will face, however, is that demand for spectrum is outstripping supply. Andrew Kerans, executive manager of the ACMA’s Spectrum Infrastructure Branch, pointed to a 30-fold increase in demand for mobile data between 2007 and 2014, which if no other factors came into play would mean the same increase needed in terms of spectrum.

“Every time the mobile sector puts up its hand for more spectrum, the satellite and broadcast sectors just cringe and wonder what’s coming next,” he noted.

“The mobile industry is not going to get 30 times more spectrum,” Kerans bluntly told delegates, suggesting that there needed to be a trade-off between spectrum and infrastructure. For example, if the cell radius was decreased by half, more infrastructure would be needed but the need for spectrum could be cut significantly.

He also pointed out that demand for spectrum would decrease as coding modulation and technology such as MIMO improves, with up to a 4-fold improvement in coding likely.

Kerans also noted that in its digital dividend planning, one of the primary goals was regional harmonisation, particularly as this would lead to economies of scale for infrastructure spending.

“We can’t fully plan until we get regional harmonisation and we won’t get that for six months at least,” he warned.

However, he noted that the issue of the 400MHz allocation for government and emergency services had now been finalised, with only the band pricing now subject to comment. “We’re well on the way to harmonisation there and it’s really heartening,” he said, noting that the ACMA would be holding a series of road shows around the country to explain the allocations in July and August.