Mississippi is getting billions from the federal government to provide broadband Internet speeds to the last ten percent of the state which doesn't have high-speed Internet, according to former Brookhaven state senator Sally Burchfield Doty.
Doty was speaking to the Stennis Capitol Press Forum at Hal & Mal's in downtown Jackson. She heads BEAM, a 2022 creation of the legislature, the Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi. BEAM is charged with managing 1.2 billion dollars that the federal government is providing Mississippi to bring broadband to last ten percent of the state that is lacking this.
Doty demonstrated the new BEAM website map at https://broadbandms.com/ where you can zoom in on your town or county and check whether your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is served, underserved or unserved.
BEAM is charged with vetting proposals from ISPs to provide affordable access to broadband in unserved and underserved areas. ISP can be the cell companies, phone companies, cable companies and independents. BEAM uses the federal money to subsidize the installation of the fiber to the home, which is the main cost, allowing the ISPs to then charge an affordable monthly rate. Doty said there are about sixty ISPs in Mississippi.
The federal government defines unserved as less than 25 megabits per second. Underserved is between 25 and 100 MBS.
The federal money is over a billion dollars. Mississippi has 1.3 million homes and businesses that are connected. Only eight percent lack high speed. That leaves about 100,000 homes and businesses lacking high speed. That's a federal subsidy of $12,000 per home to provide high speed. Doty told the audience she didn't think Mississippi would be spending all the money within the four-year deadline. In addition, non-subsidized private build out is still ongoing.
Doty said one of the challenges was tracking down all the potential locations for the BEAM map. She said BEAM is also working to include satellite provider subsidies for extremely remote areas for which fiber would be impractical. The fiber is run both overground and underground.
BEAM is also working to get an Internet Exchange Point for Mississippi.Currently, Mississippi uses a Dallas or Atlanta based exchange point. Mississippi is one of 14 states that does not have its on exchange point, which slows Internet speeds.
