"If it was going to happen, [a spectrum swap] obviously wouldn't happen until after the election," Farrar said. Partly as a result of that concern, Falcone will try to maintain control of the bankruptcy restructuring process for as long as possible, he said. After a defined period, he would have to cede some control of that process to creditors. "His focus would be on preserving control though to the end of the year," Farrar said.

Rather than a pure swap of its troubled spectrum for a cleaner band, LightSquared may pursue a deal to repurpose the L-Band for a portion of someone else's service, Farrar believes. A plan by Dish Network to on another piece of satellite spectrum, which doesn't have the interference concerns of the L-Band, is now pending before the FCC. If the agency combined its proceedings about Dish's and LightSquared's satellite bands, it might be able to assign the L-Band frequencies as part of Dish's service, specifically for upstream transmissions from client devices, Farrar said.

Limiting that band to upstream use by radios in phones and tablets, rather than the much more powerful ones in base stations, might make the spectrum useful without running a major risk of interference, Farrar said. That would give it value to Dish, which would then buy the spectrum to beef up its cellular performance.

However, testing that solution for interference would take time that Dish might not want to spend, considering it already has an LTE plan just using the spectrum it already knows about.

"At least it's a technically reasonably logical possibility. Whether it's desirable from a financial and a regulatory point of view is the question," Farrar said.