Mississippi uses first stimulus bill funds to create a 'broadband miracle':
When Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and lawmakers in the Mississippi legislature got $1.2 billion in federal money from the first stimulus bill in March, they decided to do something different. They used a portion of the funds to supercharge the rollout of high-speed broadband to the most underserved areas of the state in an effort to close the digital divide.
They went to rural electric co-ops -- private, independent electric utilities owned by the members they serve -- many of which were left gobsmacked by the offer, according to David O'Bryan, general manager of Delta Electric Power Association, which now serves Carroll and Grenada counties with broadband. Many of these co-ops had been preparing to deploy networks but lacked the cash to begin a major project, especially in the most remote and sparsely populated parts of their territories.
The result has been an acceleration in broadband deployment that could make Mississippi one of the most connected states in the nation within the next five to six years. That's a huge leap for the state, which last year ranked 42 out of 50 in BroadbandNow's 2020 connectivity rankings. The Federal Communications Commission says that at least 35% of rural Mississippians lack access to broadband.
[...] While a majority of the state's 25 electric co-ops had already done feasibility studies and were preparing for their broadband rollout, the urgency level spiked once the coronavirus pandemic hit. It shuttered schools and forced students to learn remotely via the internet. It closed businesses, leaving those who had jobs that didn't require in-person contact to work remotely. It forced health care providers to accelerate the delivery of telehealth services to minimize exposure to the deadly virus.
"Literally overnight broadband became an essential service," O'Bryan said.
So when the federal government sent states their portion of the $2 trillion CARES Act relief funds, Mississippi lawmakers decided to set some aside for rural broadband deployment.
[...] In total, 15 electric co-ops ended up receiving $65 million in grants from the CARES Act. But in a Brewster's Millions-like twist, these co-ops had to agree to spend it by the end of the year. This was a tall order considering it gave these companies only six months to deploy their networks.
And so began a mad dash in Mississippi to deploy high-speed broadband.
[...] Barnes said that before the CARES Act money was allocated, the company's plan was to deploy fiber in its more densely populated suburban markets, where the company knew it could sign up more customers. This is a similar strategy to what for-profit broadband providers, like Google and Verizon, had done in other parts of the country.
[...] The federal grant dramatically changed its strategy and timeline.
[...] "Electric co-ops have a can-do attitude," he said. "We know how to cut through red tape." He said being owned by their customers forces co-ops to have a more service-oriented perspective.
"We know if we don't do a good job, they'll turn over our board and get someone else," he said. "It's a model that has worked for 80 years."
[...] Barnes said the deployment of the CARES Act money, coupled with the policy changes by the legislature, proves that electric co-ops are up to the challenge and will get the job done if given the chance.
"In five months, we did what the incumbent telecom providers hadn't done in their entire existence for these underserved communities," he said. "The faster lawmakers can get us the money, the faster we can build the networks and get the economy going."
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @12:59PM (16 children)
Time to move to Mississippi. Oh wait, no it's not.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @01:10PM
Some of those formerly under-served communities are going to rename the internet to the trumpernet? Or maybe the covidnet...?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @02:21PM (9 children)
You're a dick. Something nice happens to poor Mississippi, and you shit on the people. I guess insecurity demands you have a place you can always say you're better than.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @03:39PM (7 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @04:36PM (5 children)
Like I said, must feel good to have an entire state full of people you can kick and feel superior to.
Hateful soul.
(Score: 0, Troll) by shortscreen on Friday February 26 2021, @05:41PM (3 children)
No, don't you see? It's the duty of Morally Superior AC to shit on Mississippi because they are "racist." Whereas if the discussion had been about an actual third world shithole then you'd be "racist" for calling it that and Morally Superior AC would be shitting on you.
"I am devoid of intolerance and prejudice, and anyone who disagrees with me is racist subhuman garbage."
- the woke motto
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @06:45PM
The UN Raporteur on poverty found poverty and living conditions in the rural south of the US as bad, and in some cases worse, than the 3rd world. Think rural Mississippi and Louisiana. To them, broadband access is a 1st-world problem. Clean drinking water and a place that isn’t mold-infested and crawling with vermin, and maybe a bit of health care and some decent food, are more of a priority.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @11:01PM (1 child)
Hey, I'll take Morally Superior AC over Morally Bankrupt AC any day. They both shit all over everyone, but at least one of them still cares that shit stinks.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2021, @06:00AM
No. Morally Superior AC only cares about his own superiority. He truly doesn't give a damn about people.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @06:10PM
Even rats are smart enough to abandon a sinking ship. Don’t complain later that you weren’t warned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @07:11PM
Racist laws? What, the laws of nature? Nature is a racist, for sure. This is what happens when cuckservatives fund the ZOG. They use it to give negroids better internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @09:03PM
Considering that politicians from Mississippi are regularly on the side of kneecapping development in other parts of the country, it's completely appropriate. It's not just that some of these states are shitholes, it's that they actively leach off of states that are better off while simultaneously kneecapping things that would better allow for those other states to prosper.
They've got what they have because of their own incompetent policies and I have no sympathy when places like TX wind up suffering for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @06:30PM (2 children)
Was there ever a time to move to Mississippi?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @07:13PM (1 child)
People are all fleeing California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @09:21PM
They have been for decades. The states are practically empty! Any day now the reckoning will come and we'll be sweating it out in the swamp laughing at them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @09:01PM
The time to move to Mississippi is when the only other options are Cleveland and Detroit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 01 2021, @03:35AM
You'd have to set you clocks back 20 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @01:30PM
Turns out covid travels on lint, now in MS you get delinted before entering public buildings.
https://mobile.twitter.com/philthese/status/1365031816277622785 [twitter.com]
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @01:47PM (15 children)
So all those people who are living in the sticks will have access to broadband if they can afford it. They’re not suddenly going to get decent paying jobs because they have broadband. So it’ll mostly increase their monthly bills by another $100 a month, making another debt they can’t afford. After all, if they could afford to, they would be working and living where there are better jobs to begin with.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 26 2021, @02:16PM (14 children)
People in rural areas already pay dearly for whatever internet is available. DSL, if available, already costs $50, $75, or more. Many who can't afford it simply do without. Or, they use a neighbor's WIFI, or they go into town to use McDonald's WIFI, or they hang out on school property long enough to check their Facebook.
My own DSL was recently upgraded from 2MB (about 1 MB actual) to 15MB (10 to 12 MB actual). It still sucks, but it sucks a lot less. And, yes, I host a number of people who come to visit so they can use the WIFI.
I am looking forward to fiber internet in the near future, which will probably cost LESS THAN what I am currently paying for DSL. https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/texarkana/story/2021/feb/02/southwest-arkansas-electric-cooperative-plans-53-million-fiber-high-speed-internet/858584/ [texarkanagazette.com]
The great thing about fiber is, I can host many more people who have no internet, and still enjoy improved service to my own computers. Add in that some of the people leeching from me now, will likely be able to afford their own internet when the increased competition drives prices down.
Better service is almost always a good thing.
While we are on the subject of improving service, let me remind you that the Telcos have been paid, and paid again, to bring service out to the sticks. Congress keeps throwing money at the problem, and the Telcos pocket the money. We people in the boondocks still need the internet that congress has paid for. We still need the internet that WE have paid for.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @02:49PM (13 children)
The cheapest quickest solution for widely dispersed areas is wireless. You won’t be sharing that much without impacting your own connection. And they’ll use the same techniques that other ISPs use to limit connection sharing.
So the problem remains - many people already can’t afford $50-$75 a month for internet. Bringing broadband to them won’t change that. It’s about better jobs - broadband won’t change rural poverty. It might seem like a small incremental amount, but when you’re poor, $75 a month is close to a grand every year.. so it becomes a choice between gas in the shot box to get to a shitty job or broadband, and Facebook isn’t an essential.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by EEMac on Friday February 26 2021, @02:57PM (5 children)
Co-op and municipal broadband have a history of delivering high speed, high quality, and low prices.
Yet a bunch of ACs show up to:
* piss on the idea
* pretend state-organized broadband costs just as much as telco's
* pretend remote work isn't a thing in the middle of a pandemic lockdown
I'm not saying they're shills. But if they were, how would their posts be different?
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday February 26 2021, @03:37PM
"I'm not saying they're shills. But if they were, how would their posts be different? "
I will they are slimy no good shills, with just about every posting out there they infest them. I have no clue who it is that spreads all this garbage around but there is a concerted effort to poison the internet with this trash. Having spiked to an all time high in the last year or so. On every subject there is that does any good for humanity and even the useless subjects it is everywhere you look.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @03:51PM
This is not municipal broadband in a reasonably dense area. Rural means low density, long cable or fibre runs (in other words, won’t happen given the time constraints - the money has to be spent within months, not years), so you’re looking at wireless or internet over existing power lines.
Forget fibre. Unlike what the original article states, you can’t just hanf fibre optic cable on telephone poles and expect any sort of reliable signal. So your comment about urban and suburban co-ops and municipal projects is SO totally irrelevant it should be modded -1 Off topic.
These are reasons only 20 rural electric co-ops signed up in the first place.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday February 26 2021, @04:06PM (1 child)
The difference would be they'd be getting paid. Instead, we have a small army of useful-idiot types shilling for free.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @04:31PM
But in other areas of poverty, they ended up NOT getting paid. That’s the flaw in the scheme. The people get excited, sign up, fall behind in their bills and get cut off.
When most of the country has broadband, having broadband isn’t something special that will suddenly attract business investment and create well-paying jobs. So rural poverty isn’t going to drop, and may even increase as people accumulate yet more unpaid debts.
There’s not much public transit in the boonies, so if part of the household budget is siphoned of to internet, that means that in households with severe financial constraints, things like maintenance on the car are going to be deferred. That increases the likelihood of catastrophic failure and the car going to the scrap heap. Then what? No car means no job. So time to hitch a ride to a city to live.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday February 28 2021, @08:56AM
Well it is socialist and therefore unAmerican. Imagine the idea of the people owning the infrastructure and not caring about profit, compared to the ideal of a private company, who is actually deserving, owning the infrastructure and being able to milk all the profit that can be milked.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 26 2021, @05:02PM (6 children)
No, I didn't say "most can't afford it". I pretty clearly stated that some can't afford the price. The part I failed to communicate is, many can't get broadband at any price.
In my case, I had 2MB DSL that averaged about 1MB. I am right at the 2 mile limit from the server. A couple hundred yards further, and the phone company would have just refused service. My neighbor does not have DSL - and the phone company won't consider installing it.
Friends and neighbors east of my home generally have DSL. Those south of my home can choose between DSL and wireless service - the cell phones work there. People west and north of my home have worse service than I have.
Satellite service is an option for some, but not for others. If you're willing to invest in a 40 or 50 foot tower, satellite works pretty good, and so might cellular service. The signal has to get in and out before either becomes a viable alternative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @05:58PM (5 children)
Sometimes the solution is to simply move to where the jobs are. No amount of internet will change the fact that Mississippi is a low wage poverty sinkhole (aka red state).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 26 2021, @06:11PM (4 children)
Obviously, you've forgotten "competition drives prices down".
When fiber arrives at prices under $100, local phone companies will either offer their DSL at vastly reduced prices, or go out of business. As I've already mentioned, with fiber, I can be generous with my WIFI hotspot, and enjoy faster/better service here inside my house.
Why do you seem to oppose the idea that rural people deserve decent service, at decent prices? Do you own stock in the telcos and/or major ISP's that might be threatened?
Once again, I remind you that congress disbursed funds to the telcos that should have paid for the "final mile" at least twice now, but the telcos just pocketed that money.
Funny - virtually everyone in America has electric service, but we don't have reliable internet service. Why?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @07:21PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday February 28 2021, @09:01AM
How many other bills can they eliminate? Phone can now be IP, entertainment just became cheaper. The gas savings from not having to drive to McDonald's and be tempted to spend money there.
Today, internet is as necessary as electricity or having a phone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @11:53PM (1 child)
"competition drives prices down"
In a well regulated market sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2021, @07:46AM
A well regulated Internet, being necessary to the satiety of a free porn State, the right of the people to keep and share WiFi, shall not be infringed.
(Score: 1) by js290 on Friday February 26 2021, @04:54PM
CSpire has been providing GigE service to the home in MS for several years.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 26 2021, @04:57PM (2 children)
Dang, that's sad. I can guess which states those might be: Alaska, Montana, North and South Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, and, hmm... Utah? Maybe another of the four corners states? Possibly Maine? West Virginia?
Checking, I see my guesses were pretty good. Wrong on Utah and North Dakota, the latter of which is far better than I thought. Definitely the most disappointing one is Iowa. How Iowa has fallen, to be worse than Mississippi. In education, Iowa used to be one of the top states. Vermont is also worse than Mississippi, but among New England states, it contends to be even more isolated than Maine, so not too surprising
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @06:18PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @06:35PM
Ever been to the southeastern or southwestern us? Don't think so, or you'd know that rural != white
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Friday February 26 2021, @05:32PM (1 child)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/bell-ceo-cottage-pemichangan-lake-1.5925882 [www.cbc.ca]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2021, @07:53AM
You know, if I lived nearby and they did that to me I'd be tempted to take a fiber-seeking shovel for irregular midnight excursions.