49-31-60.   Telecommunications infrastructure--Legislative intent. It is the intent of the Legislature that South Dakota have a telecommunications infrastructure that meets the advanced communication needs of the state's individual citizens and its communities of interest, including our schools, medical facilities, businesses, and all levels of government. To achieve this intent, it is anticipated that three networks, accessible by all South Dakotans, will be established: a narrowband network, a wideband network, and a broadband network. Together, these three networks will form South Dakota's Public Communications Network Infrastructure. This infrastructure will enable any-to-any voice, data, videoconferencing, graphics, imaging, and multimedia communications. These three networks will fully support the following capability requirements: ubiquitous, feature rich, standard, secure, private, survivable, robust, addressable, switched, affordable, and available. Communications services will be reasonably and affordably priced. Classes of service will be created for network services in order to establish a service-based and value-based pricing model. The new narrowband, wideband, and broadband communications networks will be established in a manner ensuring that all the citizens of South Dakota realize the advantages of the forthcoming information age, including economic development, educational opportunities, a heightened level of medical care, and better, more efficient service from all levels of government.

     It is the intent of the Legislature, that:

             (1)      The Public Communications Network Infrastructure will grow and enhance with expanding user needs and advancements in technologies' bandwidth and feature capabilities;

             (2)      This layered network hierarchy, based upon a fully integrated backbone of interconnected switched survivable rings, will carry independent and fully integrated voice, data, and video communications; and

             (3)      The network architecture will enable access and interconnection points for public-to-public, public-to-private, and wireline-to-wireless inter-networking.

Source: SL 1997, ch 266, §§ 1, 11, 12; SL 1999, ch 224, § 2.

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