Radiocommunications Regulations (Amendment) 1997 No. 283
EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1997 No. 283
Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Communications, the Information Economy and the Arts
Radiocommunications Act 1992
Radiocommunications Regulations (Amendment)
Under subsection 314(1) of the Radiocommunications Act 1992 ("the Act") the Governor-General may make regulations prescribing matters required or permitted to be prescribed under the Act or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Radiocommunication's Act.
The proposed Regulations amended the Radiocommunications Regulations to facilitate the licensing of certain proposed satellite services, and also made a number of minor technical amendments.
Licensing Australian Satellites and Receivers on Australian Satellites
A new generation of communication services is to be provided by: means of satellites communicating, with large numbers of transceivers in Australia. It is anticipated that the number and nature of the transceivers will make, it impractical to licence them individually, and so tax, the spectrum that they use. An alternative approach is to licence, and so tax, the transmitters and receivers on the satellites used to provide the services.
However, under section 23 of the Act, the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) can only licence a transmitter or a receiver on a satellite declared by the Regulations to be an Australian satellite'. At the request of their operators, the regulations declare satellites used by the operators of KITComm Pty Limited, PanAmSat and Mobile Communications Holdings, Inc. to be 'Australian satellites', thus bringing them within the operation of the Act.
The ACA may issue transmitter and receiver ' licences under section 97 of the, Act. However, section 7 of the Act states that 'a radiocommunication's receiver is only a radiocommunications device if the receiver is of a kind which is specified in the Regulations. The amendment to Regulation 5 declares radiocommunications receivers on satellites to be radiocommunications devices. The ACA may now licence, and so charge, the satellite operators for the spectrum used by the transceivers in Australia that communicate with the satellites. Operation of the mobile transmitters will be legitimated by a class licence, minimising the regulatory burden for the new generation of mobile satellite services.
Amendments to Definitions
Because of the current definitions of "earth receive station" and "space receive station" in Regulation 3, the ACA cannot issue, a licence for an earth receive station or a space receive station if that station is capable of both receiving and transmitting. The amendments to these definitions allow the ACA to licence earth receive stations and space receive stations capable of transmitting. At the same time the definitions were amended to replace the term 'messages' with the term 'emissions', as not all transmissions to and from the satellites may constitute messages.
Other minor amendments to definitions in Regulation 3 have been made to reflect the fact that emissions may be received from. both a man-made object (such as a satellite) or a naturally occurring thing or phenomenon. This clarification is made in relation to the definition of 'station", "space object" and "earth station". The definition of "earth station" has been expanded to include a station participating in the radioastronomy service. A definition of space station has been inserted which states that space stations must operate under a space licence. Consequently a definition of "space licence was required to describe the type of licence which will, be required for a service provided by stations on a space object.
Details of the proposed regulations are as follows:
Australian Satellites
Regulation 4 provides for space satellites operated by KITComm Pty Limited, PanAmSat Corporation and Mobile Communications Holdings Inc to be declared to be Australian satellites for the purposes, of the Radiocommunications Act 1992.
Radiocommunications Receivers
Regulation 5 provides for radiocommunications receivers that are or form part of a space receive station to be included as radiocommunications devices for the purposes of the Radiocommunications Act 1992.
Amendments to Definitions
The definitions in Regulation 3 of "earth receive station", "earth station", "space licence", "space object", "space receive station", "space station" and "station" have been inserted or amended as described above.
The Regulations commenced on gazettal.