6G phones due around 2030 as spectrum fight takes shape

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and the federal government face decisions on how much spectrum carriers can receive, what it will cost and whether regional Australia is outsourced to offshore satellites. Consumer group Australian Communications Action Network (ACAN) said these decisions will shape Australian connectivity well into the 2040s.

6G, the next generation of mobile networks, is designed with artificial intelligence built in and will run on new frequencies just above those used by home Wi-Fi. The carriers point to capacity as the main benefit: a network that keeps working even in crowded stadiums or train stations. The experience of 5G has arguably fallen short of expectations: it was sold as the network for cloud gaming and driverless cars but, according to Matti Latva-aho, founder of the world's first 6G research programme at the University of Oulu, “For consumers, data transfer speeds are somewhat faster than in 4G, but that's kind of it.”

The three carriers, Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom, say they each need a 200-megahertz block to launch competitive 6G networks from 2029. The ACMA has set aside up to 515MHz, meaning at least one carrier would start with less. Luke Coleman, chief executive of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, the industry's peak body, wants the band combined with the neighbouring lower 7GHz band and sold off in a single auction. Keeping the spectrum they already hold will cost Telstra, Optus and TPG about $6.8 billion over six years, according to an independent report commissioned by the ACMA.

Optus chief technology officer Sri Amirthalingam said the biggest lesson from 5G is that "customers don't adopt a new technology because the industry gives it a new number". They adopt it when it makes something they care about materially better. TPG's counterpart Giovanni Chiarelli said there was "a lot of science fiction around 5G", and that TPG treated it as a way to make its network faster and less congested.

Consumer advocates fear the bush will be treated as an afterthought. “Left to commercial logic, the cities will be served first, and regional Australia will be waiting again, just as it was with 5G,” said ACAN chief executive Carol Bennett. The industry's answer for regional Australia is the 600MHz band used by free-to-air TV. The federal government is consulting on the future of free-to-air TV until November 26. Nine, the owner of this masthead, is a free-to-air broadcaster.

Beyond spectrum, 6G's sensing capability, which uses radio signals to detect what is happening around it, raises privacy concerns. CSIRO's Ming Ding said 6G could sense people without them necessarily using the network, creating risks of “continuous monitoring without people's knowledge”.

Satellite services are another issue. Telstra and Optus have both signed with Elon Musk’s Starlink for satellite-to-phone services, but Optus' Amirthalingam warned that much of this infrastructure sits outside Australian control. The potential risks were highlighted in late October when Musk said SpaceX restricted Ukraine's Starlink service as its military had used it for “offensive drone strikes”, a claim Ukrainian officials dispute. Service returned after US President Donald Trump said he had told Musk to “put it back”.

Geopolitically, the 6G standard itself is contested. Aki Enkenberg, who leads the technology unit at Finland's foreign ministry, described it as "China versus the rest", with markets already splitting. Australia banned Huawei and ZTE from 5G in 2018; Finland applies the same rules to every operator and supplier without naming specific vendors.