From CommsDay of 14 August 2026
Our Story of the Week was published in CommsDay today. It covers the TelSoc webinar held yesterday. Luke Coleman, CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance gave the presentation titled, Digital Infrastructure: Driving productivity in the age of AI. Thanks again, Luke, for a very informative and interesting presentation. The video will be uploaded to the Event page on the TelSoc website shortly.
ATA warns AI boom cannot take telco investment for granted
Australian Telecommunications Alliance CEO Luke Coleman has warned that Australia’s ambitions to build a sovereign AI industry risk being undermined unless governments address weak returns on telecom investment, planning barriers and looming spectrum demands.
Speaking to a TelSoc webinar, Coleman said the “generational investment boom” in data centres must not take continued investment in the networks connecting those facilities for granted.
“The digital infrastructure that provides the connective tissue to AI datacentres should be a key part of Australia’s National AI plan,” he said, citing Venture Insights analysis that Australia’s three largest telcos are, on average, generating returns on invested capital below their cost of capital.
Coleman argued that telecommunications had historically punched well above its economic weight, contributing nearly 15% of economy-wide multifactor productivity growth in the decade to 2020.
However, that performance depended on sustained private investment and could not automatically be assumed to continue if returns deteriorated. In the subsequent Q&A, Coleman said the investment issue extended directly to preparations for 6G, warning Australia had little time to develop a spectrum roadmap if commercial services were expected around 2030.
“If we’re all expecting 6G to be a commercial reality around 2030, well, it’s now August 2026. That gives us just three years to get our ducks in a row when it comes to spectrum,” he said.
Coleman nominated the upper 6GHz band, 600MHz spectrum currently used by broadcasters and 1800MHz spectrum used by rail operators as bands requiring forward planning. He also renewed industry criticism of the cost of renewing expiring spectrum licences, saying money directed into licence payments was capital that could not be spent on towers, network capacity, 5G standalone or future 6G deployments.
“The amount that telcos will be asked to invest in those spectrum licences ultimately means they have less capital to invest in new towers,” he said.
Coleman rejected suggestions that poor industry returns could justify further market consolidation, instead arguing Australia required more infrastructure competition and network diversity to improve resilience. “We want a strong, healthy, growing, dynamic telco industry where competition is flourishing and where investment is flourishing,” he said, adding that resilience was best served by having multiple networks and alternative routes when infrastructure failed.
SOVEREIGN DEBATE: The ATA chief also used the discussion to broaden his argument about sovereignty, pointing to the growing role of foreign-owned satellite providers in Australian communications. He said the emergence of Starlink, Amazon LEO and global direct-to-device services meant Australia needed to reconsider a regulatory framework largely built around domestically operated terrestrial networks.
“You no longer need to have fibre optic cables in the dirt here in Australia or mobile towers here in Australia to provide connectivity to Australians,” Coleman said.
He said the Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation would itself require Australian mobile operators to partner with global LEO providers, raising questions about the regulatory treatment of services including future emergency calls delivered over networks not based in Australia.
Coleman was nevertheless supportive of NBN Co’s move from its Sky Muster geostationary satellites towards wholesale Amazon LEO services, saying the rapid improvement in LEO technology and strong consumer demand made an Australian-only constellation impractical. He also called for a rethink of regional telecommunications policy, arguing Australia was effectively operating three overlapping universal service regimes: the traditional fixed-line USO, the Regional Broadband Scheme and the incoming UOMO.
Coleman said the combined cost was more than $1bn annually but was “not delivering the best outcome for regional Australians”.
“I think that is wasteful,” he said. “You could have government subsidies delivering way better outcomes for consumers in regional areas than they are currently getting at much less cost.”
In his prepared remarks, Coleman identified planning reform as another immediate priority. He said council assessment of mobile sites averaged 211 days, while some applications took more than a year and were ultimately refused. ATA-backed Deloitte work estimated a 25% reduction in approval times could accelerate 150 to 200 mobile sites annually, improving connectivity for as many as 250,000 Australians sooner.
Coleman said Australia’s productivity and AI agendas ultimately depended on the same foundation: continued investment in mobile, fibre, satellite and subsea infrastructure. “If as a nation we want these things, then we have to make it easier to build digital infrastructure in this country.”
Grahame Lynch
IN TODAY’S COMMSDAY (Friday 14 August 2026)
Mobile remained a key earnings driver for Telstra in FY26, with the telco yesterday announcing a 3.2% increase in attributable net profit to $2.24 billion and 3% growth in EBITDA after leases to $8.2bn, despite a 0.9% decline in total revenue to $23.4bn.
Telstra is seeing “very strong demand signals” for its digital infrastructure assets, with chief executive Vicki Brady pointing to an accelerating sales pipeline for capacity on its intercity Aura Network.
Telstra says it is moving beyond experimentation with artificial intelligence and is increasingly optimising technology, customer service and network operations around where AI can deliver measurable returns.
Telstra is looking to 5G Standalone and its network as a product (NaaP) strategy to create clearer differentiation between premium and lower-priced mobile offerings as growth increasingly shifts towards prepaid, wholesale and sub-brand services.
GRAHAME LYNCH COMMENTS: The most interesting thing about Telstra’s FY26 result is the shape of the company that is emerging underneath it.
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has called for a “root-and-branch review” of the telecommunications regulatory framework following a systemic investigation into the experiences of telco consumers living in regional, rural and remote Australia.
Australian Telecommunications Alliance CEO Luke Coleman has warned that Australia’s ambitions to build a sovereign AI industry risk being undermined unless governments address weak returns on telecom investment, planning barriers and looming spectrum demands.
Centuria Capital Group and its joint venture ResetData has made progress with plans to develop a pipeline of AI factory deployments to meet demand for AI compute capacity.
New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has proposed keeping point-to-point, transport and co-location and interconnection fibre services regulated after finding competition remains too weak to sufficiently constrain the country’s incumbent local fibre companies.
New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has pushed back on calls to change its cost of capital methodology to reduce price shocks at regulatory resets, finding that adopting a trailing average cost of debt would deliver only modest smoothing benefits.
Inligo Networks has appointed former 5G Networks executive and co-founder Garry White as group chief commercial officer, with responsibility for global sales and commercial transactions.
Assistant industry minister Andrew Charlton says the government will move from its recently released Statement on Space to “concrete and tangible actions” aimed at commercialising more Australian technology and growing the sector’s international footprint.
Datagrid New Zealand has signed a pre-purchase agreement with Transpower New Zealand for a grid-connected substation to be built on its Southland AI factory site.
Keppel has secured a facilities-based operator licence from Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority for its planned Kruger Cable System, allowing it to own and operate telecoms infrastructure for the project.
Oracle has entered a multi-year partnership with Quantinuum to make the latter’s Helios quantum computer available through Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure and explore integrated quantum, AI and high-performance computing services.
Singapore-headquartered Lightstorm has secured a 2,500 crore (US$262 million) debt facility to fund its participation in the I-2SEA submarine cable system.
Nokia has partnered with OpenNebula Systems to develop a technology stack for sovereign AI infrastructure in Europe.
Kreios Space plans to demonstrate an air-breathing electric propulsion system designed to support long-duration satellite operations in very low Earth orbit using Kongsberg NanoAvionics’ MP42 microsatellite bus.
_______________________________
CommsDay is published by Decisive Publishing, S704 6A Glen St Milsons Point NSW
ACN: 065 084960 Mailing Address: PO Box 490 Milsons Point NSW 1565 Australia
TO SUBMIT EDITORIAL FEEDBACK OR INQUIRIES: gr**********@**********il.com
TO ENQUIRE ABOUT A SUBSCRIPTION: vi***@**********il.com
