No magic bullet will solve the upper C-band

The Federal Communications Commission's coming auction of the upper C-band for 5G and 6G and possible direct-to-device use cases will require incumbents to vacate that spectrum and pursue alternatives such as terrestrial fiber and Ku-band satellites. Those approaches have pros and cons, and there's no one-size-fits-all approach, based on recent comments from major programmers, satellite operators, and video infrastructure companies. The good news is that there's still time to figure it all out. The FCC is moving ahead with rules to auction at least 100MHz of upper C-band spectrum (and up to a max of 180MHz), with a mandate to complete the auction no later than July 2027.