NBN Fixed Wireless Antenna (close up)

Unlicensed: nbn forgets to renew its radio assignments for over half a year

Assignments at almost a thousand fixed wireless sites have disappeared after 2.3 GHz licence renewal in July last year.

The company responsible for building the National Broadband Network, nbn, has apparently failed to renew its radio assignments for the majority of existing fixed wireless towers.

Despite having around 1,200 fixed wireless towers active around Australia, the company’s radio assignment records contains only around 200 radio sites with the 2.3 GHz radio frequency assigned.

nbn uses the 2.3 GHz radio frequency to service areas in outer metropolitan fringes using TD-LTE 4G technology. However, since its licence renewal in July last year, the radio assignments in the majority of its existing fixed wireless towers have disappeared from the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA’s) Register of Radiocommunications Licences.

Contacting ACMA about this issue, the authority revealed that “it appears [nbn’s] devices on this site have not been renewed” after July and that they were “checking with NBN to find out what has happened”.

More to come.

Kenneth Tsang

I'm the author of jxeeno™ blog and co-founder of HSCninja.com. I'm a bit of an #NBN and public transport geek. You can normally find me juggling work and my studies at UNSW where I'm currently completing a degree in Geospatial Engineering.

  • im lost

    oops

  • Julian

    $13,200 x 1000 site = $13.2 Million in fines?

    • Robert Fettell

      I Agree Licencing is just not for the little Communications company’s, Maybe ACMA should not renew them and ask them to re assign to a new band as well, did not stop NBNco Charging for use of towers mahbe they shold refund the access fee’s for the time they were unlicenced, as the end user could have risked being fined as well for un licenced Transmitter.