Jackson Jambalaya

Bet those morons give it to ATT and Comcast who, like in the early 2000s, pocket the money instead of going to Cspire who actually is wiring the state with fiber.

I hope Central EPA will take advantage of these funds and install Broadband service to the parts of Rankin County they serve, especially the Pisgah/Sandhill area.

So $275 million to C-Spire?

i hope north central makes broadband service to byhalia and marshall county a priority.
also, how much will this cost the customer to connect to the broadband? hope it is not a ripoff.

10:46, are you under the belief that CSpire is the only telecommunications company putting fiber into Mississippi?

You would be mistaken.

Elon Musk is going to make all of these cable & fiber companies obsolete.
He has developed & implemented Star link. !00's of satellites in obit to deliver broadband internet service.

I'll bet, Our dumb backward thinking leaders don't even know about this.

https://www.starlink.com/

11:31AM
No I'm under no illusion that Cspire is the only one doing it, but Cspire is the only one offering symmetric Gig. In fact at my old house Comcast Gigabit is 1000Mbps download 50Mbps upload. If history is any indicator the big telcos will do token upgrades to get download peak speeds to their advertised speed, but don't expect to be able to constantly run at advertised speed. You might get that with AT&T Fiber, but I doubt it.

The arts community gets screwed again. Say goodbye to the symphony, opera, and ballet.

@11:32
On which planet is satellite internet faster and more reliable than a fiber or copper connection to your home? Because on this planet and with our atmosphere and our star it aint. Felon Musk isn't tech Jesus, he is a con artist preying on youngsters without a clue.

I would like to have a clue so clue me in.

I don't care who they give it to, but reads like the majority of funds are going to EPA'S. They are the least capable of offering internet connections at present time. I say give it to cspire ro saturate the state with high speed cellular data.

When the government steps in to provide a service that the private market can’t make a profit on, look out. Get ready for 50 years of subsidizing Facebook and Match.com usage in the sticks for the next 50 years.

Aren't we still subsidizing landline telephone lines for places that are hard to reach?

Rural EPA plan is based on 100% of the homes they wire paying $70/mo for 20 years. Doomed to fail and will look for a handout from the gubment within 5 years.

Satellite will cover all this unserved areas for 1/8 of the cost. As technology improves, so will latency. Remember dial-up? I'll wait.

I recall when we were going to put computers in every classroom. After the legislature passed funding and did three months of PR about it, the state Ed department put ONE pc in every classroom in every under-performing school district. One PC in the classroom. No internet. They were outdated before they came out of the box.

This will end up the same.

Subsidized internet is for old people who like to play on the internet on a computer out in the rural areas. Kids can do everything they want on a phone, and they all have them regardless of economic situation. Just drive down any street in Rolling Fork or Belzoni.

Elon Musk fully grasps the horror of a possible future in which humanity is controlled by a malevolent Artificially Intelligent Evermind.

The only way humanity can ever oppose such a foe is with the power of the human mind connected via Neuralink and Starlink and to spread out among the known universe.

In order to fund his race to save humanity he has to dupe some green energy cultists into buying stock in his shitty green energy company.

@2:01

Where do you think this country would be if Electric Power Cooperatives had not been created back in 1935? High speed internet is as necessary to rural residents today as dependable electric service was back then. By the way, do you understand what a cooperative is and who owns it?

2:44 PM
>Neuralink
I've read Snow Crash and Neruomancer. No wetware for me, thanks.

Down the drain goes that money. I bet they never lay more than 10 miles of fiber with this. Just wait for star link like the other posters mentioned, it will be operational long before anything comes from this handout of our tax dollars.

I thought the Free Market, as opposed to government, was the best way to get things done? Can any conservatives or Republicans square this circle for me as to why the state of Mississippi is spending money for broadband access to areas that the Free Market has indicated is not economically feasible?

This ain’t 1935

I'm glad $181,775,000 has been given back to the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.

If not, many small business owners would have never recovered.

And contrary to popular belief, not one single employee has ever "paid into unemployment".

(It's mine . . . I paid into it.)

Nope.

Not at all.

Unemployment Insurance is paid 100% by one's employer.

@4:05 PM
"This ain’t 1935"

Exactly! It's time to move into the 21st century, even if we are 20 years behind.

The poles and ROW are already in place. It does not cost $200 million to string some fiber down the highway and put up 5G transmitters in rural Mississippi. We are going to be bringing 1995 technology to rural Mississippi.

This explains cspires grand and timely statement in favor of a flag change

3:48, because government, that’s why.

These expenditures will improve the quality of education for our children. I don’t care who makes the profit.

Pitty Pander...Are you familiar with the word 'essential'?

Oh, "Unemployment Insurance is paid 100% by one's employer."

Not exactly, 4:21. The state's UI trust fund is paid into by employer UI taxes. But, all federal UI benefits are paid with federal funds. This includes the 6 or 800 a week recently paid out as well as 'extended benefits' which always kick in in certain frequent instances.

But, you're correct in that no Mississippi worker pays into the fund. In some states, they do.

“The poles and ROW are already in place. It does not cost $200 million to string some fiber down the highway and put up 5G transmitters in rural Mississippi. We are going to be bringing 1995 technology to rural Mississippi.”

If you think cellular serves Issaquena county well with density of 4 persons sq/mi, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. 4G Cellular is not the solution. 5G is ‘faster’ when it’s millimeter wave tech - try that through loblolly pine trees. The EPAs are the next best real option, next to Starlink.

Every single customer doesn’t have to be profitable, just like wire line in the 90s. Bell had to provide a dial tone to every house... and there were subsidies to ensure that happened. This is no different.

Responding to July 3 at 2:01, yes I know exactly what electric coops do. They get low interest loans from taxpayers to build facilities that so called, not for profit (largely due to paying executives investor and for profit type salaries) entities charge market prices to electric customers. Oh, when a storm hits, that cost of replacement facilities is paid by yet again, the taxpayers through grants that are never paid back and the customers get a free ride. Coops have proven to be less reliable energy providers and those of us that have electricity provided by them see our power shut off at night and during thunder storms, affecting appliances and systems in our homes that have to be repaired. Where is the Public Service Commission when this happens? They don't care and do nothing to make coops more reliable. They hide behind the remark they do not regulate them< Well, ask to regulate them. How in the hell do electric coops get $275,000,000.00 of free money when they are not regulated????? The coops and broadband will not and are not state regulated. Why do our PSC commissioners spend so much time on something they don't have a damn thing to do with? Look at what is going on at Grand Gulf nuclear power, look at what is going on on the natural gas markets! The PSC regulates these things but look into the time spent by the PSC and you will see most of their time is spent on things they do not regulate!!!!! Where is Democrat Pastor Presley in all of this? Well, he does not care that the PSC does not regulate electric coops. Presley does not care that this is free money going to an electric business that is subsidized by federal taxpayers to build facilities, rebuild storm damaged facilities and provide rates that could never be provided by an investor owned utility. If an investor owned utility tried to do what these free riding, not for profit (HAAAAAA) electric coops were doing, he would be raising hell. This is all for his political gain in the rural areas and at the cost of taxpayers when the money is needed for other things. Why has there not been a cost analysis of this done? What is the cost benefit? A regulated utility would have to prove all of that up but you see, Presley is buddy buddy (you talk about good ole boy) with the coops and is why he is saying nothing. Let's see if the 2 new commissioners have enough courage (highly doubtful) to challenge this and provide for some type of accountability. Oh and the legislature showed real stupidity here by not providing accountability and having not cost benefit analysis for $275,000,000.00 of taxpayer money. What idiots the Legislature and leadership has proven to be!!!!!!!! The latest news is that the Governor is going to appoint someone to run the public utility staff that has no experience in such matters and things continue to get worse when it comes to holding those accountable.

So many opinions -- so much disinformation...

Who says the typical residential household needs a symmetric gigabit of bandwidth or even a hundred megabits? Who says the average, income-challenged Mississippi household is willing to pay $60 or $90 per month for that level of service? The answer to both questions is "People who can't do basic math and don't know the difference between a byte, a bit, and ping time...".

I like my EPA (a lot, actually) because they provide good electrical service at a good rate. But I have little confidence that they can effectively implement and operate a $100+ million fiber optic network to 40000 customers.

Don't count out Starlink. If it flies, their anticipated targets of 100 megabits down and 40 megabits up with low latency is *plenty* for almost every household. And yes, I was a satellite internet user for 28 months before I cobbled together something that gave me better, more reliable service.

Also, don't count out hybrid approaches like AT&T's AirGig. It looks promising, avoids a bunch of huge fiber installation costs, and appears to promulgate expanded 4G/5G coverage that the rural users have been clamoring for...

If you are waiting on these rube hermit kingdom electric coops to be at the leading edge of anything, you are a fkng idiot. Check out their management salaries by googling their 990 Form. The thunder and lighting can clap 2-3 times before the lights start to blink on Yazoo Valley Electric lines.

Sadly, just another example of spending a ton of money on an ill-informed "feel good" publicity grab... while I'm all for helping the rural areas get "up to speed", sinking millions into setting up technology infrastructure that will likely be outdated before it's installed, just doesn't seem wise to me.

Another issue for me is sending over $100M to colleges and universities, and less than $1M per county to help "cities and counties".