26 February 2026

Aetha and NERA, commissioned by Telstra, prepared a report to evaluate the ACMA’s approach to using international spectrum price benchmarks for the purpose of setting renewal prices for expiring spectrum licences in Australia. While we support the use of benchmarks to set renewal prices, through our review we have identified four major shortcomings in the approach:

  1. The methodology fails to account adequately for the well-established decline in spectrum prices observed globally over the past decade
  2. The benchmark dataset contains missing awards and material errors
  3. The ACMA does not explicitly recognise or mitigate the asymmetric risk associated with setting renewal prices above a fair market value
  4. It applies forward-looking inflation to its estimate of 2025 market value despite persistent long-run price deflation

Taken together, these issues lead to proposed prices that we believe carry a substantial risk of being above actual fair market value, most notably in the ‘Sub-1GHz’ and ‘Lower 1-3GHz’ band groups.

This report was submitted to the ACMA in February 2026, and has since been made available on the AMCA’s website as part of Telstra’s submission, alongside the ACMA’s response to stakeholder submissions and it’s “preferred views on pricing”. 

📄 Read the Aetha & NERA Report
📋 Read ACMA’s Preferred Views on Pricing