What you will be able to do
- Say which licence authorises each radio in a design: class, apparatus, a spectrum licensee’s authorisation, or none because the device is banned
- Explain where you stand when you operate under a client’s licence, and get the written authorisation that makes it lawful
- Estimate a licence fee from the published schedule, and quote the first-year cost and the recurring tax separately
- Check that a band is open to apparatus licensing at a site before band-specific equipment is ordered, including for private LTE and 5G
- Keep Wi-Fi, telemetry and other class-licensed radios inside the class licence when the antenna or the power changes on site
- Read the conditions on a licence and in the licence conditions determinations, and build and commission to them
- Work out which EME conditions apply to a transmitter and what you must measure, calculate and keep
- Recognise the equipment you cannot buy, supply or install: unlabelled imports, unauthorised repeaters, boosters and jammers
- Know when an accredited person is required, what they need from you, and what will make them decline
- Sequence licensing on a project programme so it is not the critical path, and hand renewals over to a named owner
Syllabus
- 1 Which licence lets this radio transmit? Free preview
- 2 Choosing the licensing model
- 3 Whose licence it is, and where you stand
- 4 What a licence costs, and why
- 5 Fee calculations
- 6 The design decisions that set the licence
- 7 Bands that are closed to you
- 8 Design decisions and band availability
- 9 Class licences: free, shared and strict
- 10 What an accredited person is, and what the certificate says
- 11 Working with an accredited person
- 12 What is on the licence, and building to it
- 13 EME: the condition you commission against
- 14 Radios you buy, import and install
- 15 Walk the roof before you switch on
- 16 Licensing on the project programme
- 17 Final assessment: from design to switch-on
Read the first unit
Free, no account neededWhich licence lets this radio transmit?
Every transmitter you install has to be authorised by something: a class licence, an apparatus licence, or a spectrum licence. Which one is not paperwork at the end of a design. It decides which frequencies you can use, whether anyone coordinates them, what you must document, what reliability you can honestly promise, and sometimes whether the radio you were about to order can be used at all.
- What it authorises
- Your transmitter, on your frequency, at your site, to the parameters on the licence
- Who coordinates it
- The ACMA, or an accredited person whose certificate the ACMA may rely on, before issue
- Protection you get
- A recorded assignment that later services have to be coordinated against
- What it costs
- Annual tax plus administrative charges
- Typical home
- Public safety, mining, utilities, microwave links, private 5G on area-wide licences
- What it authorises
- Anyone operating a defined kind of device within fixed conditions
- Who coordinates it
- Nobody
- Protection you get
- None. You must not cause interference, and you have no protection from it
- What it costs
- No licence fee
- Typical home
- Wi-Fi, UHF CB, 915 MHz telemetry, short-range IoT
- What it authorises
- Devices the licensee operates, or authorises others to operate, inside a frequency block over an area
- Who coordinates it
- The licensee, with most transmitters registered before they operate
- Protection you get
- Apparatus licences are not issued in its frequencies and area, save in special circumstances
- What it costs
- The price paid at allocation, usually an auction, plus annual tax
- Typical home
- Mobile carrier networks, and the in-building systems carriers authorise
Apparatus licences
An apparatus licence is issued to a licensee for specific stations. It records the frequency, the bandwidth, the site or area, the power and the antenna details, and each one goes on the public Register of Radiocommunications Licences. Before issuing one, the ACMA must have regard to the effect the proposed operation would have on radiocommunications (Act section 100(4)), which is why apparatus assignments are coordinated against what is already there. That recorded, coordinated assignment is the apparatus licence’s strength. Licences can be issued for any period up to 20 years.
The trade-off is that the licence ties you to its parameters. Move the antenna, raise the power, change the frequency or fit a different antenna, and the licence no longer describes what is on air.
Class licences
A class licence is a legislative instrument the ACMA has already issued under section 132 of the Act. Anyone may operate a device of the kind it covers, with no application, no assigned frequency and no fee, provided they stay within its conditions. The ones integrators meet most are the Low Interference Potential Devices (LIPD) Class Licence 2025, which covers Wi-Fi, 915 MHz telemetry and most short-range devices, the Citizen Band Radio Stations Class Licence 2025 for UHF CB, and the Cellular Mobile Telecommunications Devices Class Licence 2024, which authorises devices such as handsets to communicate with stations operated under a public telecommunications service (PTS) apparatus licence.
Two LIPD provisions shape every design. Section 8, a condition, says you must not operate a transmitter if its operation causes interference to radiocommunications, and Note 1 to section 7 says a receiver tuned to it will not be protected from interference from other devices. So you must not cause interference and you are not protected from it. Reliability on a class-licensed band comes from engineering, not from the licence.
Spectrum licences
A spectrum licence authorises use of a block of frequencies over an area, usually allocated by auction. The mobile carriers hold most of them. While a spectrum licence covers a block and an area, the ACMA must not issue an apparatus licence there, except to certain law enforcement and security bodies or where special circumstances justify it (Act section 105). The licensee may authorise other people to operate devices under its licence (section 68), and transmitters must be registered before they operate unless the licence exempts their kind (section 69). That authorisation, which carriers give in writing, is how a carrier lets someone else run a cellular repeater or an in-building system on its spectrum.
Operating with none of them
Operating a transmitter without a licence that authorises it is an offence under section 46 of the Act: up to 2 years’ imprisonment for an individual, and up to 1,500 penalty units otherwise, with a civil penalty of up to 300 penalty units as an alternative. Having one in your possession for the purpose of operating it is the same offence under section 47, and a device that can be operated is presumed to be held for operation (section 48). A penalty unit is $364 for offences committed on or after 1 July 2026, which is why the ACMA describes 1,500 penalty units as $546,000. Civil penalty amounts in the Act are the figures for an individual: a court can order a body corporate to pay up to five times as much (Regulatory Powers Act section 82(5)).
What authorises this transmitter?
Each card is a radio a client has asked for. Decide what would let it transmit lawfully.
Office Wi-Fi access points on the 5.5 GHz channels, with DFS on.
Why the choice drives the design
| Question | Apparatus | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Choosing frequencies | Find one that clears coordination against what is licensed | The band is fixed and shared; the task is coexistence |
| Interference | Coordinated before issue | Contended, and you must not cause it |
| Documentation | The licence, the parameters it was issued on, and the EME records | Evidence the equipment stays inside the class conditions |
| Reliability you can promise | A defensible claim to a frequency | Access to a shared resource, with no guarantee |
The last row is the one that matters commercially. Promising mission-critical availability on a class-licensed band is a risk that should be named in the proposal, not assumed away.
The remaining 16 units cover Choosing the licensing model, Whose licence it is, and where you stand, What a licence costs, and why and more.
How it works
- Read each unit at your own pace, on any device. Progress is saved to your account.
- Answer the graded questions. You can re-sit any unit, and your best attempt counts.
- Pass the module and a certificate of completion is issued with a verifiable serial.
This is professional development, not a nationally recognised qualification. noIM₃ is not a registered training organisation.