Experts on Australia’s digital environment say we should exercise some restraint on mobile networks, as the possibility of overloaded frequencies becomes more likely every year.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has released new data on just how much mobile broadband networks contribute to the economy, and also shows the strong need to keep control of the spectrum.

Anyone who has tried to send a photograph or make a phone call at time of peak mobile demand, such as on New Year’s Eve or at a large festival, knows the strain that the radio frequency-based technology can experience.

But ACMA figures show our reliance on the networks, and their profitability, will only continue to increase.

The Authority says mobile broadband added $33.8 billion to Australia’s economy last year, about 2.25 per cent of GDP.

Mobile data use is on the increase, and it will likely keep rising by 38 per cent each year, ACMA says. By 2020, the demand for the spectrum is set to triple.

For ACMA, this has created a fine balancing act between frequencies and income, as it tries to allocate bandwidths appropriately without slowing them down or being able to create any more.

ACMA chairman Chris Chapman says luckily, some space has been cleared by the recent analog-digital TV switchover.

“The whole conversion from analogue to digital and now the end of simulcast means that all that spectrum in the 700 MHz has been claimed back,” Mr Chapman said in a recent interview with the ABC.

“We put new frameworks around it. We're like a town planner: we identify land, we clean it up, we put a 'for sale' sign up, and we put it out there.”

The mobile watchdog says it will release its spectrum demand forecasting model in coming weeks, and it should be available for public viewing mid-year.

As of 2015, the mobile broadband sector will be allocated a broader bandwidth too.

“In its spectrum management role, the ACMA is constantly seeking to strike a balance between the economic value of the spectrum, the interests of incumbents and their sunk investments, and the pressures of finding practical solutions for other competing and emerging interests,” Chapman says.

“Putting a dollar value is a very critical milestone.

“A lot of applications in mobile broadband aren't necessarily immediately readily convertible into dollars. We have to develop a much better expertise at assessing the relative merits and values of competing spectrum interests, and this research is a very helpful ingredient in that relative assessment.

“This work is unique, certainly unique in Australia and from what we've been able to see, unique internationally, in pinpointing the specific economic benefits of mobile broadband,” he said.

ACMA has now published its full report; ‘The economic impacts of mobile broadband on the Australian economy, from 2006 to 2013’.