EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULE NO 278 ISSUED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS
Sub-section 93(1) of the Radiocommunications Act 1983 (‘the Act’) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, prescribing matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
The regulations amend the Radiocommunications (Licensing and General) Regulations (‘the Principal Regulations’) in order to make certain changes to the structure and form of transmitter and receiver licensing. Details of these changes are set out below. The changes are related to amendments of the Regulations made under the various Radiocommunications taxing Acts in accordance with Government decisions taken in the Budget context.
Regulation 1 - Commencement
Regulation 1 provides that the Regulations are to come into operation on 1 October 1986.
Regulation 2 - Principal Regulations
Regulation 2 provides that in the Regulations ‘Principal Regulations’ means the Radiocommunications (Licensing and General) Regulations.
Regulation 3 - Interpretation
Regulation 3 amends various definitions contained in regulation 2 of the Principal Regulations.
The definition of ‘AUSSAT receive-only station’ is amended to take account of the restructuring of the Schedule to the Principal Regulations.
The definitions of ‘earth station, Class C (receive-only)’, ‘earth station, Class D (receive-only) and ‘earth station, Class E (receive-only)’ are omitted and five new earth station definitions are substituted. These are Earth stations, Classes A to E (receive-only). The first object of this amendment is to introduce two new earth station categories ‘Earth station, Class A and B (receive-only)’ to enable the voluntary licensing of such stations for planning and co-ordination purposes. The second object of the amendment is to alter the definitions of ‘Earth stations, Classes C to E (receive-only)’ to allow non-commercial users of such stations an exemption from licensing.
The definition of ‘exterior paging service’ is omitted and a new definition substituted. The new definition is necessary to take account of the restructuring of the exterior paging service categories to provide greater concessions to the operators of regional exterior paging services for the use of supplementary transmitters.
A new expression, ‘extra high density location’, is defined in regulation 2. The expression is used in relation to the creation of a new category of base station licence, namely ‘Base station, Class A (extra high density location) service’ which will apply to certain base stations to be operated in the Sydney and Melbourne areas.
A new expression ‘trunked land mobile service’ is defined in regulation 2. The definition is related to the introduction of the ‘Base station, Class A (extra high density location) service’ licence.
Regulation 4 - Declaration as to receivers
Regulation 4 repeals regulation 7 of the Principal Regulations and substitutes a new regulation. Regulation 7 declares certain receivers to be receivers for the purposes of Part VII of the Act. The new Regulation 7 adds two new categories of receiver, namely, ‘Earth stations, Class A (receive-only)’ and ‘Earth stations, Class B (receive-only)’.
Regulation 5 - Schedule 1
Regulation 5 repeals the existing Schedule 1 to the Principal Regulations and substitutes a new Schedule.
The new Schedule includes the new category of licence ‘Base station, Class A (extra high density location) service’ and a description of such services at item 12.
The Schedule also includes the four new categories of exterior paging station licence, which, as explained above, have been introduced to provide a greater concession to the operators of regional exterior paging services for the use of supplementary transmitters. These are items 27 to 30.
The ‘Fixed station, Class C’ class of licence which currently has two categories, namely ‘high density location’ and ‘low density location’, has been split into four new categories. The new categories are fixed stations, Class C1 and Class C2, (high density location) and (low density location). The Class C1 categories apply to transmissions exceeding 30MHz but not exceeding 1GHz while the Class C2 categories apply to transmissions exceeding 1GHz but not exceeding 10.5GHz. The four new categories are described at Items 35 to 38 of the substituted Schedule.
Items 61 and 62 of the substituted Schedule contain the multipoint distribution station, Class B categories split into two new categories, namely, ‘high density location’ and ‘low density location’. The category has been so split to provide a concession to regional multipoint distribution service operators.
Items 68 and 69 of the substituted Schedule describe two categories of radio determination stations. Previously there had been only one category. The distinction between the new ‘high power’ and ‘low power’ categories is that the former refers to a station where the mean power fed to the antenna exceeds one watt while the latter refers to a station where the mean power fed to the antenna equals or is less than one watt.
Item 72 of the substituted Schedule is the new category ‘Repeater station (passive)’. The object of this amendment is to allow the licensing of passive repeaters for planning and co-ordination purposes.