All of Australia’s capital city digital radio transmitters have been installed and the multiplexes are in place. The last antenna rigging activities are now happening around the country as Australia prepares to switch on digital radio. Perth will be the first city on air beginning next week, and will operate with low power at night in test mode for the first few weeks.

Joan Warner confirmed the timetable at today’s RadComms09 conference, acknowledging the cooperative approach taken by ACMA in planning the implementation of the new transmission technology.

“In past years we have been here talking about it, but now we are just weeks away from the capital city rollout,” Warner told the conference. But she also injected a note of reality into the discussion, reminding delegates that while the five largest licence areas are switching over, there are 100 more Licence Areas in this country that need to be planned over the next few years.

Warner called for the allocation of spectrum for these areas as a matter of priority and has written to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and the Prime Minister, urging them to make a commitment to the allocation of VHF spectrum across Australia as bands become clear after digital tv switch-off.

Australia’s radio industry has also been urging manufacturers to put screens into as many receivers as possible because the industry believes that will deliver the greatest benefits for consumers and drive take up of new radio sets.

Warner also debunked the case for internet radio superseding free to air terrestrial radio once the national broadband network is in place, saying the incremental costs of delivering radio streams increase as more listeners log on, potentially clogging up networks and causing high infrastructure costs. She used the example of the 2Day FM breakfast audience. With an audience of 300,000 listeners 2Day has a single transmission cost, and if listeners increase the cost remains the same. On the internet, as listeners increase more bandwidth and servers are needed, so to service streams for 300,000 listeners on the internet a company would need to deploy 300 servers to ensure the viability of the stream. “That is very spectrum inefficient.”

Meanwhile, in another conference session, the Mobile Phone industry made a concerted grab for large chunks of spectrum, urging the regulators to deliver on the ‘digital dividend’ by selling it for mobile communications which would deliver revenue to government and increase productivity and profits for the public and for telcos. The mobile industry plans to intensify its lobbying as the 2013 deadline for reissuing spectrum licences draws near.

ACMA is urging broadcasters and interested parties to make comment on its spectrum licencing priorities so that it has all views on the issue when it considers what to do with unused and cleared spectrum in coming years. See the link below for information on submissions.