The government is to make major investments into 5G telecommunications technology for Māori, including the establishment of a Māori Spectrum Authority which will manage a tranche of radio wave licenses to be granted to Iwi in coming years.
Māori lodged the Wai 150 Treaty claim in June 1990 to secure cell phone spectrum that would ultimately create Mobile phone carrier 2Degrees but 5G technology requires a whole new range of spectrum which the government is now releasing.
Last year the government established a working group to represent Māori interests in the latest release of spectrum and Māori TV understands that group will soon become a legislated entity, with $32 million to establish and administer the organisation over the next five years and $42.8 million to fund Māori groups to utilise the new spectrum, although $17.8 million of this is reallocated funding from a previous Māori technology innovation fund.
Within the next year it’s understood the government will release 400 Mhz of spectrum within the 3.5 Ghz band, a quarter of which will be granted to Māori, while all unallocated spectrum within the 2100 Mhz and 2300 Mhz bands look likely to be granted to Māori.
A document released to Māori Television also suggests the government will commit to 20% of all future spectrum releases to be granted to Māori.
Radio wave spectrum is hotly contested by the likes of Spark, Vodafone and 2Degrees. The more customers a telco has and the more data they use on data-hungry video streaming or gaming means the more spectrum is needed to avoid slow connections and dropped calls.
Spectrum is auctioned by the government to telcos by the Ministry of Business but a policy change as a result of businesses that claimed they were under pressure from the pandemic saw the government introduce a reduced flat rate of roughly $250,000 per 10 Mhz; even at that rate, the Māori spectrum allocation will be valued in the tens of millions of dollars.