The sale of the spectrum, which is valued at $1 billion-plus by industry experts, will be addressed in a government green paper that was supposed to be released last October and is now expected to be released in January.

Industry insiders have told the Canberra Times that the sale of the spectrum is unlikely to go ahead before early 2011 - once marketsd have improved in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis - but the government will sign off on the idea in the next month.

The new spectrum will contribute up to $10 billion annually to the Australian economy, according to Australian Mobile Telecommunications Industry chief executive Chris Althaus, because it will allow the mobile broadband and phone industry to expand and eventually offer fourth-generation or ''4G'' mobile services in Australia.

As analogue TV signals are progressively switched off around the country from June 30, 2010, the spectrum will become available to carry high-speed digital phone and mobile broadband signals - a godsend to an industry that boomed in 2009 despite the global financial crisis, with telco Optus reporting a 51 per cent growth in the sales of mobile broadband products in the last 12 months.