Tag Archives: DoD

Are Spectrum Licenses Property?

There is an interesting lawsuit in the U.S Court of Appeals for the case of Ligado Networks, LLC v. United States.  Ligado Networks filed a suit that alleges that the U.S. government unlawfully took its licensed spectrum without due compensation in favor of use by the Department of Defense. The spectrum involved in the suit is L-band spectrum, which sits next to spectrum actively used by DoD for GPS.

The government is arguing in the case that it has the right to take back spectrum when it’s needed for defense purposes. The government is arguing that Ligado doesn’t have a relevant property interest in the spectrum.

For some background, Ligado was granted the spectrum in 2020 by the FCC to use for a satellite-based 5G cellular network. The DoD opposed that license award at the time, and after the FCC awarded the spectrum, the DoD effectively cancelled the Ligado use of the spectrum in opposition to what the FCC had recently ordered. Ligado declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2025, citing the loss of the spectrum that would have been the basis for its business.

Ligado is arguing that what the government is doing is a taking, and that the government could claim any spectrum without compensating the spectrum owner.

USTelecom wrote a brief in the case in support of Ligado Networks. USTelecom argues that its members spend billions of dollars to buy spectrum, and billions more to build networks that use the spectrum. They argue that the government’s actions in this case undermine the ability of carriers to rely on spectrum, which will dampen the willingness to spend a lot of money for spectrum that could be taken away at any time.

The suit should be of interest to WISPs since there is a possibility that the FCC could reclaim CMRS spectrum to meet the Congressional mandate to to find more spectrum for  cellular auctions. The WISP industry has been working hard to protect that spectrum, but this case has to make them nervous.

USTelecom further argues that the government could use the same logic to argue that it could take back rights-of-way or other uses of public lands. In case that sounds far-fetched, the Supreme Court of Georgia recently ruled that local governments can withdraw contracts that granted rights-of-way, by relying on an argument that no contract can last forever, with no end date. The Georgia rights-of-way will likely be renegotiated. But the principle is bad news for telcos, cable companies, electric companies, wireless companies, and the many businesses that rely on maintaining rights-of-way to support long-term infrastructure. The same logic can hold for public lands.

A judge ruled in November that the Ligado suit can continue to examine the issue of whether spectrum licenses are property. This is a suit worth keeping an eye on.

Battle for CBRS Spectrum

There is a huge battle brewing at the FCC over the use of CBRS spectrum. The pieces are starting to fall in place to possibly auction the spectrum for use by cellular carriers.

The idea of putting the spectrum up for auction has been discussed for several years, but the topic went into high gear last year when AT&T asked the FCC to open a formal docket to explore the idea. AT&T’s request was opposed by a diverse set of industry stakeholders, and the FCC didn’t take any action on the AT&T request.

One of the stumbling blocks to the AT&T request is that this spectrum is used by the military, primarily by the Navy. The Department of Defense just removed that hurdle and is circulating a spectrum plan where it would relocated its functions being handled by CBRS spectrum to the 3.1-3.4 GHz band.

The other new change is that Congress now seems gung-ho to reauthorize FCC spectrum auctions as a way to meet budget goals. During newly-passed House version of the new budget is an assumption that new spectrum auctions will be able to raise $88 billion. That claim seems high since the FCC has only raised a total of $233 billion from spectrum auctions since the process began in 1991.

For a new spectrum auction to raise a lot of money, a lot of spectrum has to be made available. The DoD proposal has the military freeing up 640 MHz of spectrum, including freeing up use in 1300-1350 MHz, 1780-1850 MHz, 5850-5925 MHz, and 7125-7250 MHz. DoD also proposes that the FCC clear 220 MHz in the upper C-band for auction. The FCC has already been considering auctioning off the AWS-3 spectrum bands that include 1695-1710 MHz, 1755-1780 MHz, and 2155-2180 MHz.

If the FCC goes along with AT&T’s and DoD’s proposed plans, it will be a huge windfall for cellular carriers over other spectrum users. CBRS spectrum is used today for a wide variety of functions, including rural broadband, manufacturing, industrial and enterprise private networks, transportation and logistics connectivity, and school and library access. I wrote a recent blog about how John Deere was using the spectrum to create a private network for its factories in Illinois and Iowa.

A spectrum auction would require the auction winner to fund existing users to relocate to another spectrum band, but doing so is disruptive, and in many cases would not result in a one-for-one functional swap.

The FCC would also be setting a new precedent by relocating CBRS spectrum users who won the use of the spectrum in the last few years. For the FCC to change its mind about the spectrum should make any spectrum winner nervous that the FCC won’t defend existing spectrum licenses.

Anybody who has been following the industry has noticed a big uptick in discussions about how the U.S. is again losing the 5G battle to the Chinese. I’ve never found anybody able to tell me what that means, and the last time this language was used was part of a ploy by carriers to put pressure on the FCC to hold more spectrum auctions. It looks like history is repeating itself.

The most interesting thing about these spectrum battles is that the cellular carriers mostly want more spectrum to be able to compete for home broadband service. I think we should be having the policy discussion if that is in the long-run national interest. It makes sense to deploy unused spectrum in rural areas to provide broadband in places where people don’t invest in fiber networks. But spectrum is a limited resource, and I think it’s a valid question to ask if we should be using valuable spectrum to bring a third competitor to urban markets that already have fiber and cable ISPs. I went back and reviewed the original goals for 5G, and competing for home broadband was never mentioned as a goal.