When the FCC mandated the switch to digital broadcasting, it opened the door for South Carolina to own, or lease to private companies, the nation’s only public, statewide wireless internet system.The Joint Bond Review Board Subcommittee will hear testimony this afternoon(2:30) on the terms of a contract to lease all of the state’s educational broadband capacity to two private companies.
SCETV officials say ETV will still hold the licenses and as license-holders we still have responsibility for the regulatory requirements mandated by the FCC. Each state, by law, keeps five percent of the spectrum for public educational use.
Orangeburg representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter is on that four-member subcommittee, the only Democrat. She says the state will have control of up to 25 percent of the broadband spectrum. The question is what to do with the extra 20 percent of the spectrum. [click to continue…]
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