Mississippi Broadband Awards $71M to AT&T, Comcast, C Spire, Conexon, Others

The state of Mississippi awarded $70.9 million this week to nine providers to cover some of the costs of 24 broadband deployment projects in areas lacking high-speed service.

Among the awardees were AT&T, Comcast, C Spire, Conexon and other primarily local providers.

The state did not detail how much money will go to each provider, but instead announced which providers would serve which counties. In some cases, there were multiple projects in a single county, and sometimes more than one provider won funding in the county.

AT&T won funding for projects in four counties and Comcast won funding for projects in three counties.

C Spire, a Mississippi-based company that offers mobile and fiber service in the state, won funding for two counties. Conexon also won funding for two counties. The company started out several years ago as a consultant to electric companies entering the broadband business but more recently began offering broadband service on its own.

A third company that won funding for two counties is Swyft Connect, a fiber provider serving Louisiana and Alabama, as well as Mississippi.

Companies that won funding for a single county were Delta Fiber, DE Fastlink, Franklin Telephone and Uplink.

Delta Fiber is a local fiber provider. DE Fastlink is the broadband unit of Dixie Electric.

Franklin Telephone is a rural provider founded in the 1950s. Uplink is a local provider offering fiber and fixed wireless.

 A full list of awardees is as follows:

• AT&T
• C Spire
• Comcast
• Conexon
• DE Fastlink
• Delta Fiber
• Franklin Telephone
• Swyft Connect
• Uplink

The award decisions were made by Mississippi’s Office of Broadband Expansion and Accessibility (BEAM). Funding came through the federal Capital Projects Fund.

The funding is expected to make high-speed broadband available to approximately 27,000 households in 19 counties.

Additional information about Mississippi broadband, including links to state funding resources, state specific Telecompetitor coverage, awards made and more, can be found on the Telecompetitor Broadband Nation webpage for the state.