Instructional Television Fixed Service

The Educational Broadband Service (EBS) was formerly known as the Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS). ITFS was a band of twenty (20) microwave TV channels available to be licensed by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to local credit granting educational institutions. It was designed to serve as a means for educational institutions to deliver live or pre-recorded Instructional television to multiple sites within school districts and to higher education branch campuses. In recognition of the variety and quantity of video 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 television materials.

The FCC changed the name of this service to the Educational Broadband Service (EBS) and changed the allocation so each licensee would not have four 6 MHz wide channels but instead would have one 6 MHz channel and one 15 MHz wide "channel" (three contiguous 5 MHz channels). There are currently several hundred EBS systems in operation delivering schedules of live and pre-recorded instruction.

The FCC initially authorized ITFS, in 1963, 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.

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