Spectrum reallocation is only getting more complicated, as the airwaves get more crowded. There are certainly recent examples—the C-Band deployment delays and the ongoing dispute over Ligado’s spectrum use potentially impacting Department of Defense operations—where better and earlier collaboration between federal agencies might have headed off some of the resultant issues.
Now, with the 2.5 GHz auction recently concluded and the Federal Communications Commission having done the work to get swaths of midband and high-band spectrum into 5G development and/or deployment, conversations on spectrum policy are shifting focus to renewing the pipeline of airwaves under consideration for future use.