The US operators have always faced the challenge that their country’s spectrum band plan is perennially out of sync with the rest of the world, for historical reasons related to allocations for broadcast, satellite and local broadband, as well as a very fragmented geographical system. At the start of 5G, the incumbency of satellite and federal users in 3.5 GHz – the main global band for first-phase 5G roll-out – meant that AT&T and Verizon had no midband spectrum and had to deploy in challenging millimeter wave bands. However, the operators invested heavily last year in the auction of C-band spectrum, and some of that has already been vacated by incumbent satellite users – adding considerably to the 5G capacity…