WISPAU at RadComms 2026: Why Fixed Wireless Needs a Seat at the Spectrum Table
RadComms is the ACMA’s flagship spectrum event, and this year’s edition — held 25–26 August at the RACV City Club in Melbourne under the theme “Global challenges, local solutions” — brought together government, industry and researchers to talk about the issues shaping how Australia manages its airwaves. For WISPAU, the association representing Australia’s fixed wireless internet service providers, being in the room mattered more than usual.
Why WISPAU shows up
Fixed wireless ISPs are quiet, essential infrastructure in regional and remote Australia. In towns and rural areas where fibre doesn’t reach and mobile coverage is patchy, a WISP tower is often the only realistic path to a decent internet connection. But that entire business model depends on access to usable, well-managed spectrum — and the rules governing that spectrum are set in rooms like RadComms, not on the tower sites where the work actually happens.
If WISPs aren’t represented at events like this, decisions about licensing, band planning and coexistence get made by parties who don’t fully understand how small and mid-sized regional operators actually deploy equipment, manage interference, or serve customers on tight margins across huge geographic footprints. WISPAU’s presence at RadComms is about making sure regional connectivity providers are part of that conversation — not an afterthought to it.
The AFC conversation
One of the more consequential threads running through this year’s event was automatic frequency coordination, or AFC — the system that lets standard-power Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices operate in parts of the 6 GHz band without stepping on incumbent, licensed users like fixed wireless links.
For an industry that increasingly relies on 6 GHz for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint links, how AFC gets implemented in Australia is not an abstract regulatory detail — it’s the difference between links that stay clean and links that start seeing noise floor creep as unlicensed devices proliferate. Getting the coordination database, exclusion zones and incumbent protections right, before the band fills up with client devices, is far easier than trying to fix it after the fact.
That’s why direct engagement between WISPAU, the ACMA and other interested parties — equipment vendors, other licensees, and researchers running real-world trials — is so valuable. Conversations about AFC benefit enormously from bringing trial data and field experience to the table alongside the regulatory framework, rather than leaving the framework to be built in isolation from how the spectrum is actually used day to day. RadComms is one of the few forums where all of those parties are in the same room at the same time, able to compare notes and iron out the practical questions: how conservative should exclusion zones be, how often should the coordination data refresh, and how do smaller regional licensees get properly represented in a database that was largely designed with metro deployments in mind.
Why it’s worth doing
Events like RadComms don’t produce instant outcomes — spectrum policy moves slowly and deliberately, as it should. But showing up consistently, building relationships with ACMA staff and other stakeholders, and putting the regional fixed wireless perspective on the record is how that policy ends up reflecting reality rather than an incomplete picture of it. AFC is a good example of exactly the kind of issue where that groundwork pays off: get the coordination right now, with everyone’s input, and the whole industry — WISPs, Wi-Fi vendors, incumbents with licensed links, and the ACMA alike — benefits from a 6 GHz band that stays usable and of value for everyone.
