Many rural areas of New Mexico are too far from internet infrastructure like fiber cables and cell towers but do get TV reception. In October, local broadcasting affiliates of New Mexico PBS finished testing the technology to make sure they could set aside bandwidth not taken up by TV show broadcasts and dedicate it to broadcast downloadable digital files.
There are limitations to the technology that won’t allow it to replace the internet. For one, the datacasting is currently one-way and won’t allow students to send data back to schools. That means no video chats with teachers or access to email.
New Mexico sees TV tech as one fix to K-12 internet divide