By Eddie Nabors Guest Columnist
During the recent Mississippi Municipal League meeting on the Gulf Coast, C-Spire announced that they have opened the Fiber to the Home initiative to cities statewide.  Fiber to the Home or FTTH for short is a push by C-Spire to install fiber optic cable in residential areas in Mississippi.  Fiber optic cable access to the internet is 100 times faster than existing access rates. 

 Batesville was among the original nine cities qualified as winners of the statewide FTTH contest last year.  Now the competition increases.  It was an honor to be selected in the first nine and due to the efforts of our FTTH team to date, we still have an edge in the competition to qualify for the installation of fiber optic cable in our city at no cost to our residents other that a nominal and refundable ten dollar sign up fee. 

 Fiber optic installation has transformed cities that have had the foresight to have it installed at their own expense and we are being offered free installation.  The cost to install this infrastructure is in the millions.  Not capitalizing on this offer is comparable to saying, “No thank you, we don’t need any new jobs or opportunities here.  We don’t want to be connected to the world by free jet airport.  We’ll just keep our gravel road.  Let another city have the free jet airport.  We’ll wait and see if competition forces us to build our airport at our own expense.” 

 The city of Quitman has qualified for installation.  Their school system, according to a conversation with their mayor, will be offering telemedicine consults with the University of Mississippi hospital network via their fiber-optic connection. Also, additional coursework via their fiber-optic connection will enhance their school curriculum. Other innovative uses are yet to be imagined. 

 Recall the theme from the Kevin Costner classic movie, Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come?” The thing here is we don’t even have to build it. Let C-Spire build it. They want to. They have made the offer.  Let’s let them build it and then we will see who and what will come to Batesville. 

Think about it as a ten dollar investment to “future proof” your city. Sign up if you haven’t, then call your neighbor or better yet go to their door and make them sign up. We need an each-one-teach-one approach and this could mushroom. 

 Please act. Click the link, get your card out and sign up. One day when everyone in your house is streaming a different movie, or playing games on-line, or using wi-fi on five different phones and it’s all happening without a hitch you will be glad you did.

 Sign up TODAY!
 If you are interested in finding our how you can be more involved, please make plans to attend our Batesville Champions meeting on Monday, July 14 @ 5:30 p.m. at Panola Partnership!
(Eddie Nabors is Ward Four Alderman in Batesville and owner of Video South.)