Regional Connectivity Program Round 3 (including Mobile Black Spot opportunities)—Draft Grant Opportunity Guidelines

Listen

The department is seeking stakeholder feedback on the draft grant opportunity guidelines for Round 3 of the Regional Connectivity Program (including Mobile Black Spot opportunities).

Why we want your input

We want to make sure that communities, governments, telcos and other interested people can have their say on the Round 3 program guidelines before they are finalised and a call for applications is made.

How you can voice your opinion

You can provide feedback on the Round 3 draft program guidelines by uploading your submission or emailing it to regionalconnectivity@communications.gov.au by 10 February 2023 at 5:00PM AEDT.

What will be the outcome of this consultation?

Your submissions will help inform the finalisation of the Round 3 guidelines for the Regional Connectivity Program.

The Issue

The objective of Round 3 of the Regional Connectivity Program is to use a place-based approach to target telecommunications infrastructure investment that will respond to local priorities, maximise economic opportunities and social benefits and to improve mobile coverage in underserviced regions.

Through the October 2022 Federal Budget, the Australian Government committed $200 million (GST exclusive) to Rounds 3 and 4 of the Regional Connectivity Program. These rounds will work to improve digital inclusion, social and economic opportunities for regional communities through investment in new or upgraded telecommunications infrastructure.

An additional $50 million has been allocated to RCP Round 3 from the $400 million regional mobile coverage component of the Better Connectivity Plan or Mobile Black Spot projects that expand mobile coverage and competition across rural and regional Australia.

Accordingly, Round 3 of the Program has up to $150 million (GST exclusive) of funding available, across two streams:

A $100 million Regional Connectivity Solutions stream for place-based solutions that deliver new or upgraded broadband services or upgraded mobile services; and
A $50 million Mobile Black Spot Solutions stream that deliver New Handheld Coverage to regional, rural and remote Australia.

For Mobile Black Spot Solutions, the draft guidelines encourage applicants, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and other interested parties to work together during the application development period to develop multi-MNO solutions, including solutions that use active sharing technologies.

The Round 3 draft guidelines outline the eligibility criteria for both participants and activities under the program, as well as the assessment criteria and application process for prospective projects. We welcome feedback on any aspects of the draft guidelines to ensure they meet the program's objectives.

Relevant documentation

Regional Connectivity Program Round 3 (including Mobile Black Spot opportunities) Grant Opportunity Draft Guidelines

Participate

20 Dec 2022 17:00 AEDT

10 Feb 2023 17:00 AEDT

Closed

We invite you to to tell us your views on this topic.

Please include:

contact name
organisation name, if applicable
contact details, including telephone number, postal and email addresses
confirmation whether or not your submission can be made public—published—or kept confidential.

All submissions to be made public need to meet the Digital Service Standard for accessibility. Any submission that does not meet this standard may be modified before being made public.

If your submission is to be made public, please ensure you do not include any personal information that you don't want to be published.

If your submission is confidential, please ensure each page of the submission is marked as confidential.

Please click on the 'Have your say now' button below to upload your submission.

This consultation is closed.

Alternatively please email your completed template submission to RegionalConnectivity@communications.gov.au or send it to:

Director, Regional Connectivity
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts
GPO Box 594
Canberra ACT 2601

Australian Privacy Principle 5 Notice

Regional Connectivity Program Round 3 Draft Guidelines

The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (the department) is collecting information for the purposes of developing the Program Guidelines for Round 3 of the Regional Connectivity Program, in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988.

The department will use this information to inform consideration of issues associated with Round 3 of the Regional Connectivity Program and will store this information securely. It may be used by the department to make further contact with you about the program guidelines.

The department will not disclose information to third parties, except in the circumstances outlined below.

Submissions, in part or full, including the name of the author may be published on the department's website unless the submission is confidential. Confidential submissions (including the author's name) will not be published. Private addresses and contact details will not be published or disclosed to any third parties unless required by law.

Submissions will only be treated as confidential if they are expressly stated to be confidential. Automatically generated confidentiality statements or disclaimers appended to an email do not suffice for this purpose. If you wish you make a confidential submission, you should indicate this by ensuring your submission is marked confidential.

Confidential submissions will be kept securely and will only be disclosed in the following circumstances:

in response to a request by a Commonwealth Minister
where required by a House or a Committee of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia
where required by law.

The department may also disclose confidential submissions within the Commonwealth of Australia, including with other Commonwealth agencies, where necessary in the public interest.

Please note that in order to protect the personal privacy of individuals in accordance with the Privacy Act any submissions containing sensitive information, personal information or information which may reasonably be used to identify a person or group of people may not be published, even if not marked as confidential.

The department's privacy policy contains information regarding complaint handling processes and how to access and/or seek correction of personal information held by the department. The Privacy Officer can be contacted on 02 6274 6495 or by email: privacy@infrastructure.gov.au.