Great point, and I would imagine that spectrum / bands will be the next big "war" like patents have been recently for large entities. Lightsquared really tested the waters - and failed due to simple engineering and existing neighbors overlap (aka "No, you can't build a dirt bike track in the middle of a suburban neighborhood and next door to an Elementary school"). Getting access and legal approval will be quite a subject for lots of different modernized and modernizing countries to consider!
I wasn't aware of Lightsquared. But it seems like they were a "new player". If you look at the winning bids of the "Digitale Dividene (= digital dividend) I" and "Digitale Dividende II" in Germany it's easy to see that you have to be a big player to have real chances (or being even allowed to bid) in those frequency auctions.
Further I know of some radio stations (especially community radios) which refuse to accept special offers from broadcast carriers for digital radio (DAB+ and DVB-T(2)) broadcasting because of the fear that this could be used as another argument against them having an own analog FM frequency.
