ACMA RADCOMMS PANEL - WHAT DO INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY DEVELOPMENTS MEAN FOR US?

LUKE COLEMAN, CEO COMMS ALLIANCE

Sydney, 24 October 2024:  Good afternoon everyone, I’m Luke Coleman, and I should preface my remarks by saying I just had my one-month anniversary as the CEO of Comms Alliance, so it really should be my esteemed colleague Mike Johns on stage and not me. Mike’s got more than a decade of experience in satellite and spectrum management – he’s the brains of the operation, I’m just the pretty face.

Comms Alliance members include satellite operators, mobile network operators, Wi-Fi device and mobile handset makers – but given AMTA is here, Louise Hyland can speak on behalf of MNOs, I’ll largely speak for the Satellite Services Working Group.

The SSWG has been running since 2011, has held 71 meetings, includes 24 members, and has made 136 submissions on spectrum management and other satellite issues – that’s around 10 per year.

In total, the SSWG members have some 800 years’ collective experience in satellite and spectrum management issues.

Before we get io the Q&A part of the panel session, I’d like to open by highlighting 3 key things:

The new ‘space race’ is all about communications

First, we are well and truly experiencing ‘new space race’.

But this time, rather than putting a man on the moon, we’re putting telecoms exchanges and mobile towers in orbit.

It’s mind-blowing to think how far we’ve come in a decade – in 2014, I was a staffer in the then Assistant Minister for Communications office, and we were still one year away from the launch of Sky Muster 1, and two years away from the launch of Sky Muster 2.

I missed out on a ticket to French Guiana for the launches, and I’m still annoyed about it.

At the time, I remember talking to regional and remote stakeholders like the School of the Air about how Sky Muster was going to be a game changer for their connectivity – and I just cannot believe that less than ten years later, the technology has advanced so rapidly. It’s like science fiction.

The advances in satellite technology have gone hand in hand with giant leaps in rocket launch technology.

SpaceX is planning manned missions to Mars by 2028.

Within the next decade, we may well not only have the first person on Mars, we may well have the first telecommunications tower on Mars transmitting signals back to earth.

This sounds like science fiction, but it’s not.
In fact, I am willing to make a prediction – I’ll even make it a bet – I’ll bet $50 with anyone in this room that ten years from now, at Radcomms 2034, we will have a panel session on ‘Interplanetary Spectrum Management’.

I’m not sure which spectrum management agency will be handling the licence arrangements for mobile towers on Mars – but Chris [Hose, ACMA] and Shanyn [Sparreboom, DITRDCA], it’s certainly going to make for some interesting sessions at WRC-31 and WRC-35.

So point 1: We are living in the new space race, and that makes spectrum management – particularly international spectrum management – so critical.

Australia can disproportionately benefit – so must be disproportionately involved

Point 2: Australia can disproportionately benefit from the benefits of advances in new satellite technologies – so we must be disproportionately involved in the spectrum planning process.

Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world with one of the lowest population densities for the “last 3%” of people living and working in remote areas.

They run farms, they work on mines, they are critical to Australia’s food security and our resources industry – which plays a huge role in our economic security.

It’s hard to think of any other nation in our region which has so much total economic output come from regional and remote areas.

And these industries are reliant on connectivity – connectivity equals productivity.

Furthermore, advances in satellite technology provide brilliant opportunities to improve connectivity for First Nations Australians living in remote areas, and I’d like to thank Dr Lyndon Ormond-Parker from the First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Group for his work in that regard.

When it comes to international spectrum planning processes, Australia has historically punched above our weight – and we must continue to do so.

And it’s more than just our own backyard – Australia has a duty to the Indo-Pacific region to play that disproportionate role.
Just like regional Australia, our regional neighbours (Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Niue, the Cook Islands) are also heavily dependent on satellite – and will disproportionately benefit from advances in satellite connectivity.

The traditional lines between mobile and satellite are about to get really blurry

Point 3: The traditional lines between mobile technology and satellite are about to get really blurry.

We are just beginning to see the opportunities presented by Direct-to-Mobile technology, and we can talk a bit later about the two main technology contenders in the mix:

Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) and 3GPP IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications) satellite Direct-to-Mobile, each of which uses different spectrum and different device ecosystems.

I won’t dwell on the detail here, but I highlight it because it’s another area where Australia will disproportionately benefit.

In my previous life in Canberra I was involved in regional communications policy, including the early rounds of the Mobile Black Spot Program and early attempts at reforming the Universal Service Obligation.

Direct-to-Mobile connectivity – to a standard handset, with terrestrial latencies – was again, science fiction.

Today, standard off-the-shelf handsets have built-in satellite connectivity for emergency communications and messaging. Mobile operators around the world are trialling direct-the-mobile network integration.

I know this panel isn’t here to debate universal service reform – if it was, I could happily take up the entire hour myself – but I raise it because again, spectrum management is absolutely pivotal to making it all work.

We’ll need to manage spectrum allocation, interference issues, device standards, and a whole lot more – but Australia stands to disproportionately benefit from these technological leaps.

Thank you.