Updated signaling, such as the new IE described above, has been introduced to indicate specifically whether the DoD band or the C-band is supported by an n77 band cell. However, the legacy UEs that are not capable or configured to operate in the DoD band are unlikely to be configured to recognize this new signaling. These UEs may respond to such unrecognized signaling by “barring” the associated cell for a period of time (e.g., 300 seconds) and then attempting again to connect to the cell, resulting in repeating the same inefficient and wasteful cycle.

To further exacerbate the situation, where a base station supports both the C-band and the DoD band, and a UE has successfully camped on the C-band on the associated cell, the DoD band frequencies may appear more attractive to the UE because they are slightly lower than the C-band frequencies and therefore may be detected by the UE as having a better signal level than the C-band frequencies. This may cause the UE to try to initiate a different connection with the cell (e.g., reselect the cell) using the DoD band because the UE has determined the DoD band to have better signal quality. However, because the UE is not capable of communicating fully using the DoD band (e.g., is unable to understand the new IE distinguishing the DoD band from the C-band), the UE will bar the cell and wait for a period of time (e.g., 300 seconds) before attempting to again establish a connection, resulting in an inefficient cycle of wasting resources.