FAQ's About ITFS
What is ITFS?
The Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS) is a band of twenty (20) microwave channels available to be licensed by the FCC to local credit granting educational institutions.
It was designed to serve as a means for educational institutions
to deliver live or pre-recorded video instruction to multiple
sites within school districts and to higher education branch
campuses. In recognition of the variety and quantity of
materials required to support instruction at numerous grade
levels and in a range of subjects, licensees were typically
granted a group of four channels. Its low capital and operating
costs as compared to broadcast television, technical quality
that compared favorably with broadcast television, and its
multi-channel per licensees feature made ITFS an extremely cost
effective vehicle for the delivery of educational materials.
There are currently several hundred ITFS systems in operation
delivering schedules of live and pre-recorded instruction
The FCC initially authorized ITFS to operate using a one-way,
analog, line-of-sight technology. Typical installations included
up to four transmitters multiplexed through a single broadcast
antenna with directional receive antennas at each receive site.
Receive site installations included equipment to down convert
the microwave channels for viewing on standard television
receivers. In typical installations, the down converted ITFS
signals were distributed to classrooms over multi-channel closed
circuit television systems.
In the late 1980’s the FCC recognized that many ITFS licensees
lacked the technical expertise and/or the financial means to
make effective use of ITFS. Subsequently, the FCC authorized
ITFS licensees to lease a portion of their spectrum, designated
as “Excess Capacity," for commercial use. ITFS licensees were
required to retain forty hours per week per channel for
instruction with the excess available for commercial use in
exchange for technical and financial support for their
instructional service. Using ITFS excess capacity and up to
thirteen channels in the companion commercial service, the
Multi-Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS}, a number of
telecommunications companies built wireless cable systems. The
number of available channels, however, proved to be insufficient
to compete effectively with the expanding channel capacity of
cable TV.
ITFS and MMDS licensees then sought FCC authorization to employ
digital compression technology, which would substantively
increase the number of program streams that could be carried on
the channels of the combined ITFS and MMDS spectrum.
In1998, the FCC approved the use of digital compression in ITFS.
At the time digital compression technology was expected to
expand the number of program steams by a ratio of 4 to 1 or
more. The FCC also authorized both cellular and two-way
operations in the ITFS/MMDS services and the potential for ITFS
to be used for the distribution of data, as well as video. In
the same rule, the FCC reduced the capacity that educational
licensees were required to retain for instruction from forty
hours per week per channel to 5%
of channel capacity. In permitting two-way operations the FCC
created the first potential for a substantial use of
instructional materials that rely on interaction between the
instructional program and learners.
The expanded programming capacity provided by digital
compression encouraged a number of commercial entities to create
wireless entertainment video systems. These systems found,
however, that the additional programming capability was not
sufficient to overcome the line-of-sight handicap and the
associated higher cost for customer installations. It was clear
that while video distribution was a viable educational service
for ITFS, commercial video services could not be widely
successful in the ITFS/MMDS spectrum.
In 1999, telecommunication interests associated with the cell
phone industry sought o obtain FCC approval for the transfer of
portions of the ITFS spectrum from educational use to support a
proposed 3G (Third Generation) cell phone technology. In 2001,
the FCC ruled to preserve the ITFS spectrum for education and
further modified the rules to authorize the use of the spectrum
in mobile operations and voice communications.
These changes in rule and the rising demand for broadband
communications led to several commercial tests of combined
ITFS/MMDS digital systems designed for two-way data
distribution. It was believed that these wireless systems could
provide a high-speed data connection that would compete
effectively with DSL and cable modem services in providing
access to the Internet. Such systems would also have the
capacity to distribute video and voice in the form of data.
These tests were, subsequently, halted as it became apparent
that the existing technology and cost structures could not
sustain commercial operations.
During the same period a new technology, Non-line of sight
(NLOS), was in development and testing by a number of technology
companies. NLOS showed promise of overcoming the obstacles of
line-of-sight and high customer installation costs that had
handicapped ITFS/MMDS operations. That improvement, however, was
not judged to be sufficient to insure that a combined ITFS/MMDS
digital service could satisfy the needs of education, as well as
providing technology sufficiently robust to be commercially
viable. Therefore, in 2003 the National ITFS Association, the
Catholic Television Network, and the Wireless Communications
Association filed a joint proposal with the FCC to reformat the
ITFS/MMDS spectrum and to provide rules, which would support
widespread development of a wireless broadband service in the
ITFS/MMDS spectrum. For details see
2004 Presentations
On July 28, the FCC released the full text of its Report and
Order on ITFS/MMDS.
click here
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