Tech Movement aims to move small North Mississippi town forward through broadband, jobs and innovation
Saltillo, Miss. (October 29, 2019) – Saltillo, a small, family-friendly town in northeast Mississippi, is poised to become one of the latest markets for C Spire’s next-generation residential Fiber-to-the-Home program, which features ultra-fast Gigabit speed internet access, award-winning live streaming TV and premium digital home phone service.
C Spire Home, the unit that manages the company’s residential fiber program, will begin work early next month to install the ultra-fast broadband infrastructure in the first Saltillo neighborhoods. Although one of the smallest cities in the state, the town has been one of the fastest growing since the late 1990s with young families flocking to the Tupelo suburb.
The company plans to turn up service to the first customers by the first quarter of next year and will pass hundreds of homes in the Lee County community by next summer. The addition of Saltillo brings the number of markets participating in the company’s Fiber-to-the-Home initiative to 24, one of the largest programs of its type in the U.S.
“Residential fiber is transformational and this revolutionary technology infrastructure promises to boost home values, broaden entertainment opportunities, help expand the local economy and improve the quality of life for homeowners,” said Ashley Phillips, general manager of C Spire Home Services. “We plan to move quickly to activate these services.”
“In today’s world, having fast, affordable and dependable broadband internet is very important to our residents,” said Saltillo Mayor Rex Smith. “C Spire is helping us deliver on our desire for a small-town quality of life without sacrificing the need for 21st century communications amenities.”
Smith said local government and business leaders believe the broadband infrastructure will be a “positive game-changer” for the town because of anticipated long-lasting impacts on tourism, education, industry and health care. “Saltillo has a reputation as a great place to live, work and play and this investment by C Spire is only going to build on that reality.”
The first customers to receive the services not only will experience a quantum leap in broadband internet speeds and capacity, but also get access to digital home phone service and the nation’s first app-based, live streaming digital commercial TV service honored by the cable TV industry in 2017 as the best television technology product in the U.S.
C Spire TV delivers advanced cable TV features that consumers love in a convenient and simple app that is designed to run on popular streaming devices, such as Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Apple TV – eliminating the need to outfit every TV in the home with a set top box and saving several hundred dollars a year in rental fees.
The Saltillo residential fiber program is leveraging new infrastructure additions in key areas in Northeast Mississippi to C Spire’s over 9,200 route miles of backbone fiber optic cable that spans the state. “Our services are future-proofed with the incredible capacity that this technology supports,” Phillips said.
Mississippi Public Service Commission Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley, a long-time advocate for more broadband in rural areas across the state, said he expects the 21st century technology to transform the way homeowners live, work and play while boosting education, job opportunities and economic development in Saltillo. “Great internet access is critical to our success and I appreciate C Spire’s continuing efforts to make it a reality here.”
Regional business and economic development leaders said the C Spire move means that more areas will benefit from the next-generation broadband services. “Saltillo and Lee County are open for business—this smart growth and new fiber-based investment in our region will ensure that we continue in that positive direction,” said David Rumbarger, president and CEO of the 1,100-member and Tupelo-based Community Development Foundation.
The Lee County Board of Supervisors also has worked to improve internet access for residents and businesses. The project will involve multiple fiber hoods and cover much of the county’s 32,000 households.
Recent nationwide studies have concluded that Gigabit speed fiber-optic connections like those provided by C Spire Home can add $5,437 (3.1 percent) to the price of a $175,000 home – about as much as a fireplace, or half the value of a bathroom.
With the addition of Saltillo and other unincorporated areas of Lee County, C Spire has rolled out ultra-fast Gigabit internet access and related services in 24 Mississippi markets, boosting overall broadband connection speeds in the state by 200 percent since 2014. The suite of services is competitively priced and is expected to pave the way for a boon in smart home applications, innovation and growth of the regional economy.
Residential fiber is part of the C Spire Tech Movement, which is committed to moving communities forward through technology with a focus on broadband access, workforce development and technology innovation.
To learn more about C Spire Fiber service and pricing or to find out if your home is in an area with this next-generation technology infrastructure, visit www.cspire.com/saltillo. To learn more about the C Spire Tech Movement, visit www.cspire.com/techmvmt.
About C Spire
C Spire is a diversified telecommunications and technology services company that provides world-class, customer-inspired wireless communications, 1 Gigabit consumer Internet access as well as a full suite of dedicated Internet, wireless, IP Voice, data and cloud services for businesses. This news release and other announcements are available at www.cspire.com/news. For more information about C Spire, visit www.cspire.com or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cspire or Twitter at www.twitter.com/cspire.
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