Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Sasa Kadrijevic
A new Low Earth Orbit Satellite Working Group has held its first meeting and identified four main regulatory areas applicable to the telecommunications reform.
The intention to establish the Group was announced in October last year.
The first meeting, held in Sydney in early February, saw a range of telecommunications industry participants come together, along with representatives from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, the ACMA, and the new First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Group.
The four priority issues singled out by the Group are:
- How satellites can help close the digital inclusion gap, particularly in relation to First Nations peoples consistent with Closing the Gap Target 17;
- The role of satellites in supporting greater resilience and redundancy in emergency circumstances;
- The use of satellites to deliver universal telecommunications services; and
- The economic benefit that could come from greater LEOSat usage, including by facilitating the Internet of Things.
The potential for LEO to play a role in position, navigation and timing (PNT) services was a key theme of last December’s IGNSS conference in Sydney.
“There is considerable interest in whether LEOs and other emerging satellite technologies can improve outcomes for Australians living in remote and regional areas,” said the Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland.
