Mississippi Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds Ruling to Award C Spire with State Technology Contract

Mississippi Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds Ruling to Award C Spire with State Technology Contract

After Years of AT&T’s Appeals and Delays, C Spire Can Now Move Forward in Bringing State-of-the-Art Voice and Data Technology to Mississippi’s State and Local Government Agencies and Schools

Ridgeland, Miss. (April 16, 2020) –C Spire today announced that its new contract with the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services (ITS) will move forward without any further delays.

This exciting news follows a unanimous decision by the Mississippi State Supreme Court denying AT&T’s appeal and ushers in a new era of technology access for Mississippians, which will employ C Spire’s fiber technology to improve the state’s communications capabilities.

“We commend Mississippi’s state leadership for taking particular responsibility to spend each taxpayer dollar wisely and for putting our citizens’ needs first,” said C Spire CEO Hu Meena. “We look forward to continuing our successful partnership with MS ITS and providing Mississippians with the services and prices they deserve.”

C Spire’s cutting-edge network, with tens of millions of fiber feet throughout Mississippi, utilizes advanced IP-based services to provide leading voice and data services, keeping Mississippi at the forefront of technology now and for years to come. Under the new contract, state workers will have access to the fastest Internet speeds in Mississippi – over 100 Gigabits per second – making Mississippi a tech leader.

In 2017, MS ITS issued a Request for Proposals to purchase telecommunications services for all of state government. ITS then selected C Spire's proposal over AT&T's proposal for its superior service offerings, as well as its cost, which was $32 million less than what AT&T proposed. Now, instead of paying more for an antiquated, legacy AT&T network, Mississippians will have access to C Spire’s new, advanced voice and data network that will give state entities, including schools, the competitive edge they need.

About C Spire
C Spire provides a full suite of world-class, customer-inspired dedicated Internet, IP Voice, data, managed services, cloud services, value added resale and mobile communications to businesses and wireless, 1 Gigabit consumer Internet access and related home services for consumers. This news release and other announcements are available at www.cspire.com/news. For more information about C Spire, visit cspire.com or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/cspire or Twitter at twitter.com/cspire.