Western Australia takes pro-business stand, grants major exemptions to companies for more mobile phone towers

The West Australian government has turned more business friendly by doling out significant exemptions for telecommunication companies in the matter of installing equipments. The new rules cover structures above the ground level such as fixed wireless transmitters, mobile phone towers, enterprise-owned radio equipment, microwave links, and amateur radio equipment.

Mobile phone carriers welcomed the new regulations, known as state planning policy 5.2. The new rules seek to bypass local planning laws, and also check theit propensity to banish telecommunications equipment, citing acceptable land use. The SPP is premised on the principle that setting standards to protect the Australian public is a Commonwealth government’s responsibility and beyond the powers of local councils.

“Local councils’ policies can raise inappropriate provisions to do with the deployment of mobile telecommunications infrastructure, in particular the imposition of exclusion (or buffer) zones,” AMTA Mobile Carriers Forum manager Ray McKenzie said.

He said the precedence of SPP 5.2 will improve the industry’s ability to undertake deployments according to uniform planning requirements across the state.

Local protests

By restraining local councils from going overboard with their veto to prevent telecom projects from making progress in projects, the new regulations also control them from forcing operators to include buffers around their equipment.

The regulations also bring more clarity with regard to criteria in terms of equipment's location-- in an existing duct, building or tower wherever possible and colours and finishes must minimise visual and environmental impact.

The new rules are clear that if the proposals are meeting the criteria and the towers are less than 30 metres in height, the applications will be exempt from local government approval. The federal government also faced community opposition to its plan of increasing the thickness of NBN cables on power poles to 48mm without local or state planning approval.

Telstra towers

Meanwhile, Telstra has announced building of 22 new mobile phone towers across regional Western Australia. This followed the state government’s commitment of investing AU$45 million in boosting mobile coverage. It is planning to set up 85 mobile phone towers and they will be completed by the end of 2018.

The government is pushing for greater connectivity for regional areas and has collaborated with Telstra to build 113 new and upgraded towers along major highways and communities, according to WA regional development minister Terry Redman, reported IT News.

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