This comprehensive review paper integrates concepts and viewpoints to understand the strategies adopted by the wireless carriers in the USA when acquiring mobile wireless spectrum. In the mobile wireless industry, the key industry and business drivers are the investments made by network operators. Of these cost drivers, the most influential on the industry’s dynamics are the capital investments, which include spectrum acquisition investments. This paper provides a review of, and integrates new theories and research results of a group of original papers on spectrum strategies. The concepts and viewpoints are developed based on inferences drawn across these papers, and extensive studies on the evolution of spectrum market and acquisition patterns amongst carriers during the wireless spectrum distributions in the U.S. over the past 15 years.