Regulators worldwide are shifting from conservative, static spectrum rules toward systems that treat spectrum as a dynamic, software controlled resource. This change is not academic. Automated Spectrum Access systems such as Spectrum Access Systems in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service and Automated Frequency Coordination for the 6 GHz unlicensed band are live policy experiments that demonstrate both the potential and the operational risks of digitizing spectrum management.

Take the 3.5 GHz CBRS model. In mid 2024 the NTIA, the Navy, and the FCC coordinated changes to the aggregate interference model that materially reduced Dynamic Protection Area footprints and expanded practical commercial coverage. That decision lets SAS administrators apply improved propagation and clutter-loss assumptions and in turn opens CBRS capacity to tens of millions more people while preserving incumbent protection through automated controls. The operational lesson is clear. Automated sharing requires validated models, rigorous testing, and formal change control to balance incumbent protection and commercial access.

The 6 GHz band provides a second recent example. The FCC approval and commercial certification of Automated Frequency Coordination systems moved substantial standard power unlicensed capacity from policy into deployed networks. AFC systems assign channels and power to individual APs based on location, propagation modeling, and incumbent protection rules. Those systems unlock multi-gigabit Wi Fi for indoor and venue-scale deployments while placing trust in software to make safe assignments at scale. The combination of AFC rollout and international mid band harmonization increases both the value and the systemic exposure of automated spectrum control.

On the international stage the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 opened substantial mid band resources for mobile services including harmonized work in and around 6.425 to 7.125 GHz. That political agreement strengthens the incentive to deploy automated coordination systems and to push policy toward real time, coordinate-and-share approaches rather than lengthy reallocation procedures. But it also means cross border and multilateral technical alignment becomes more important than ever.

National regulators and ministries are responding in kind. In the United Kingdom the government and Ofcom have explicitly prioritized dynamic spectrum access, automation of shared licence bands, and expanded sandboxing opportunities for private networks and experimental deployments. That policy posture reflects a broader trend: regulators want to enable use while retaining guardrails that protect critical services.

Risk profile from a defensive and EW standpoint

From the electronic warfare perspective the shift to digitized spectrum governance changes the attack surface. Two generic classes of risk stand out:

1) Integrity of inputs. Systems such as AFC and SAS depend on correct device location, operational state, and trusted telemetry. If those inputs can be spoofed, coerced, or manipulated, spectrum assignments can be corrupted, creating either harmful interference to incumbents or denial of service to lawful users.
2) Targeting of control infrastructure. AFC servers, SAS administrators, and the telemetry and provisioning endpoints are high value nodes. Compromise or denial of these nodes yields outsized operational impact compared with attacking a single transmitter.

These are not hypothetical concerns. GNSS jamming and spoofing remain real world problems for timing and location inputs. Federal complementary PNT initiatives acknowledge the need to harden timing and location sources for critical infrastructure. Any policy that outsources spectrum safety to automated decision systems must consider the upstream resilience of position and time sources.

Practical policy recommendations

1) Mandate minimum security and integrity requirements for automated controllers. Require authenticated device attestation, tamper resistant location proofs where appropriate, and signed provisioning data. These requirements should be technology neutral but measurable.
2) Require spectrum control systems to support auditable logs and deterministic replay. Regulators should be able to inspect historical allocation decisions to understand failures, validate models, and perform forensics after incidents.
3) Formalize and fund national testbeds and sandboxes for red team exercises. Policy change must be backed by adversary-informed testing that includes GNSS loss, spoofing, and control-plane compromise scenarios.
4) Enforce minimum telemetry and monitoring standards. AFC and SAS operators must export standardized telemetry to regulators and certified monitoring bodies so systemic performance and interference events are visible in near real time.
5) Implement staged rollouts with rollback gates. Model or parameter changes in a shared system should require graduated deployments: lab validation, constrained field trials, controlled region expansion, then full production.
6) Strengthen complementary PNT capabilities for critical infrastructure. When spectrum safety depends on GNSS derived inputs, regulators must coordinate funding and standards for resilient timing and positioning sources and backups.
7) Adopt threat-informed procurement rules for mission critical spectrum services. Public sector users, including defense and public safety, should procure with adversary models in mind and require supply chain transparency from AFC/SAS vendors.
8) Promote international technical harmonization and incident sharing. Cross border interference and model mismatches are inevitable as WRC outcomes bring new bands into play. Multilateral data sharing agreements for interference events reduce escalation risk.

Operational guidance for the EW and spectrum communities

  • Treat AFC and SAS as mission-critical systems. Include them in spectrum operations center exercises alongside radios, radars, and SIGINT collections.
  • Build graceful degradation modes. Devices and networks must have validated fallback channel plans and limit-exceed responses that are safe under GNSS loss and controller unavailability.
  • Invest in measurement campaigns and independent verification. Regulators should not rely solely on vendor self tests. Independent labs and government test centers must validate model assumptions and recalibrate protection criteria.

Closing

Digitizing spectrum management is the correct long term path. It unlocks spectrum value, enables local private networks, and accelerates rollout of high capacity services. The catch is a governance problem that looks more like software engineering than classical radio allocation. If policy treats AFCs, SASs, and other automated engines as just another rule set, we will misprice the risk. Instead federal and national regulators must recognize these systems as critical infrastructure, build security and auditability into policy, and require adversary informed testing before broad adoption. The dual goals are simple: enable dynamic access where safe, and make failure modes visible, auditable, and survivable when they occur.