The first regulatory developments of the year highlight the contrast between authorities which are thinking out of the box about efficient spectrum allocation, and those which are clinging to traditional auctions in which operators end up paying huge sums for relatively small numbers of airwaves. Malaysia’s government has published complicated but interesting plans to allocate spectrum in a way that would minimize the infrastructure investment required for 5G, while ensuring return on existing 4G investments. It is not going as far as some European regulators, like those in Germany and The Netherlands, in opening up bands for non-operators, but it believes its proposals would help to improve the business case for Malaysia’s telcos to support diverse industrial use cases, and…