RSM October 2009 Newsletter
Spectrum Licensing
Digital Futures: Planning for Digital Television and New Uses
The Ministries of Economic Development, and Culture and Heritage, held workshops in Auckland on 8 September and Wellington on 15 September to inform interested parties on the issues contained in the Digital Futures discussion paper.
The final date for submissions was 30 September 2009. Over forty submissions were received.
Feedback on the options and proposals contained in the paper will help inform Government in making final recommendations. Ministers are due to report to Cabinet at the end of the year, with decisions to follow.
Related link: Digital Futures discussion paper
3.5 GHz Round 3 allocation: Notice of qualifying applicants
The Ministry has received two separate applications for the purchase of 3.5 GHz spectrum licences as part of the Round 3 allocation of the Crown-reserved spectrum in this band.
The applicants, Network Waitaki Limited and Alpine Energy Limited, are both qualifying applicants. If no qualifying competing applications are received by the Ministry within 30 working days of the applications being advertised on the website, the licences will be assigned to the qualifying applicants at the reserve price.
Related links
Radio Licensing
Statistics of licence audits
Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) carries out an audit programme of spectrum, radio and general user licences.
The purpose of these audits is to promote compliance with licence conditions maintaining the integrity of the Register of Radio Frequencies.
From the beginning of this financial year on 1 July 2009 until 30 September 2009, RSM has completed:
|
Licence audits |
Infringement notices |
Warning notices |
|
372 |
16 |
29 |
Common breaches of licence conditions include:
- Transmit without a licence
- Transmit power is in excess of licensed power
- Transmitter is not installed at the location recorded on the licence
- Transmitter is not operating on the frequency recorded on the licence
Related link
SMART Tip #2 - Find more licences using “wildcard characters” in licence search
When entering search criteria for a licence search in SMART you can enter a wildcard character into your search string to enable you to find more results.
A wildcard character is a special character that represents one or more other characters.
This SMART Tip explains what are wildcard characters and which ones can be used when searching for licences.
Related link to licence search in SMART
Important updates to SMART
There have been a number of important updates recently to SMART:
Licences can now be modified in the same month as annual fees are due
Prior to 21 September, if a radio licence was required to be modified, its annual licence fee had to be paid in full before an application could be submitted.
Even though a licence annual fee is due, an application can now be submitted to modify the licence. For engineers there is no change in the procedure when modifying the licence - the change occurs after the licence is certified when a notification is emailed to the client to "confirm" the application. At this point SMART recalculates the annual fee based on the new modified licence's parameters - the client then sees the new fee on the Fee Payment screen.
If annual fees are due on a licence that is undergoing modification, the list of licences due for renewal will indicate that the licence is being modified (and not able to be renewed).
Note - the above information also applies if an engineer is acting on behalf of a client when paying the annual fees or generating an invoice.
Associated licences cannot be renewed independently from primary licences
For the above item to be possible, a change has been made in regard to paying for licences due for renewal. When viewing licences due for renewal that have associated licences (e.g. fixed point-to-point licences), selecting them automatically selects any associated licences. This means that associated licences cannot be independently renewed - there is now no check box next to associated licences. All the licences selected for renewal can be viewed on the Licence Renewal Summary screen that follows.
If, for example, a point-to-point licence that is due its annual fee is modified (but not the associated licence), when the Fee Payment screen is shown, both the modified licence and the associated licence's fee is shown to be paid. This is so both licences are renewed at the same time.
Schedules of licences due for renewal now show the channel
When viewing the List of Licences Due for Renewal (as an attachment to an email or letter) the channel is shown in addition to the frequency of the licence.
On the “Licence Renewal Search” screen, "pending" licences are hyperlinked to the “pending renewals” screen
During the process of paying for licences due for renewal, if the payment process is started but aborted, the status as shown in the Licence Renewal Search screen is "Pend". This status is now hyperlinked directly to the Pending Renewals screen. This is the same as selecting the Pending Renewal button.
Spectrum licences now have a hyperlink to their related Management Right
- The hyperlink to view the annual fees for a licence is now on the "Fees Paid On" date.
- Spectrum licences will now have a hyperlink on the "Mgmt. Right ID" (Management Right ID) - clicking the hyperlink will take you to the Management Right Summary screen.
Product Compliance
Product compliance audits
Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) carries out an audit programme of product suppliers to check product labelling, compliance documentation and licences each year.
The purpose of these audits is to protect the utility of the radio spectrum by ensuring compliance with New Zealand regulatory requirements. The audit programme achieves outcomes through a mix of education, warnings and Infringement Notices. Audits provide importers, distributors and retailers with an opportunity to learn more about the requirements of their licence.
Common breaches of product compliance include:
- Supply of products operating outside the General User Licence
- Supply of products with insufficient labelling
- Supply of products with no compliance folders or insufficient compliance folders
From the beginning of this financial year on 1 July 2009 until 30 September 2009, RSM has completed:
|
Supplier audits |
Infringement notices |
Issued warning letters |
|
68 |
1 |
34 |
Related links:
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