C Spire Launches Ultra-Fast 1 Gbps Internet Access Initiative for Mississippi Businesses

As a part of the company’s Tech Movement initiative, C Spire today announced it will hold two upcoming meetings in Tupelo, Mississippi to discuss ways to make affordable, ultra-fast broadband Internet access widely available to consumers and businesses across the state.

More than 1,300 local business owners have been invited to the meetings scheduled to take place on Monday, Nov. 6 at the BancorpSouth Arena and Conference Center.

As part of the meetings, a lunch session is scheduled at 11:30 a.m. and an after-work social is set for 5:30 p.m. Registration closes on Friday, Nov. 3.  To secure a seat, business owners must register at http://events.cspire.com/fiberfasttupelo.

“I’ve had a vision for some time now to see our city become the first in Mississippi to make Gigabit speed internet access available to all our 4,400-plus businesses and nearly 39,000 residents,” said Shelton.

Tupelo is one of at least two dozen cities chosen by C Spire to begin the first U.S. effort aimed at making Gigabit internet widely available to businesses ranging from coffee houses and restaurants to law offices, accounting and tax services.  The company aims to make ultra-fast service available to one out of every five of the state’s 250,000 businesses.

Gigabit access for businesses is the second phase of a major private sector technology deployment by C Spire this fall that features a massive expansion of ultra-fast broadband internet and wireless fiber-based fixed internet to more than 250,000 consumers and small businesses in cities and towns across the state.

The broadband expansion is a key part of the C Spire Tech Movement, an outgrowth of the company’s 2013 groundbreaking Fiber-to-the-Home program, one of the first of its type in the U.S. and the fastest to connect thousands of Mississippi consumers in nine communities across the state to Gigabit internet, digital television and home phone services. Other elements of the program include leading the development of a tech workforce in Mississippi through education initiatives, expanding tech innovation and development of a state-of-the-art digital customer care platform for customers and team members.

“We’re excited about partnering with the city of Tupelo to make the benefits of ultra-fast, fiber-based Internet available to their local businesses,” said Allen McIntosh, vice president and general manager for C Spire Business Solutions.

McIntosh said the city has been divided into six business fiberhoods – designated areas that are within several hundred feet of the company’s extensive infrastructure of buried fiber optic cable.  Even the 3,300 businesses that are outside of the primary sphere of influence can receive the service if there is enough interest, he added.

“With this model, we can make these cutting-edge 21^st century services available anywhere as long as there is enough interest to justify our capital investment,” McIntosh added.

McIntosh also stated the goal of the meetings is to gauge interest among businesses and discuss next steps for the project. Similar meetings are planned later in the month, including one in Laurel on Nov. 9.

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