We have news! C Spire has been busy forging a partnership that will create new opportunities for residents and businesses in the state of Alabama. It all centers around a major expansion of C Spire Fiber into the state, bringing huge opportunities for communities, especially those in rural areas.
What’s happened?
On Dec. 5, C Spire and Alabama Power announced a partnership that will bring high-speed internet to Birmingham and other parts of Alabama in 2020. That means Alabama residents and businesses will benefit from C Spire’s 30 years of experience bringing broadband internet and managed business services to Mississippi and other states across the country. But to be clear, when we say internet, we don’t mean just any internet. We mean ultra-fast, all-fiber Gigabit-speed broadband internet.
C Spire CEO Hu Meena said this partnership is monumental in the life of the company. “While we’ve had a presence in southern Alabama (Mobile) for decades and our Alabama headquarters are here in the Birmingham area, we plan to make our all-fiber broadband services available to homes and businesses across the state next year.”
Hu points out that many rural areas in Alabama have inadequate internet access to grow and prosper in a technology-centered economy – something that C Spire aims to change with our Gigabit-speed broadband internet initiative that will rely on our all-fiber optic infrastructure. “In Mississippi, we have deployed thousands of miles of fiber-optics, and we are excited to bring the same investment and customer-inspired services to the people of Alabama,” said Hu.
Since 2014, C Spire has boosted Mississippi’s overall broadband connection speed by 200 percent for thousands of consumers, businesses and local and state government operations. Our suite of services is competitively priced and is paving the way for a boom in smart-home applications, innovation, business expansion and economic growth.
Next steps
We are working quickly to identify Alabama towns and communities that are enthusiastic about the prospect of gaining more broadband infrastructure and transforming their areas into hubs for the rapidly evolving digital economy.
One of those areas is Birmingham, the state’s largest city and one of its fastest growing metropolitan regions. “This is a great investment in the future of Birmingham and our metro area,” said Mayor Randall Woodfin, noting that C Spire plans include a suite of services for both consumers and businesses.
C Spire will use a crowd-sourcing model in Alabama to help gauge community interest and guide decisions on broadband deployment. “The communities that want this game-changing infrastructure and services the most will get it first,” said Hu.
Although there are already several internet service providers in Birmingham, Meena said C Spire will have an advantage because of its customer-inspired approach to business, which means a laser focus on local customer service and support, value and its adherence to no data caps or surprise monthly charges.
The partnership
Tony Smoke, Birmingham Division Vice President for Alabama Power, said the partnership with C Spire will help make communities stronger. “We are thrilled to welcome C Spire to Birmingham and other parts of our state.”
Smoke said Alabama Power’s fiber infrastructure helps increase the reliability and resiliency of its electric grid and provides economic growth opportunities.
“Our fiber strategy allows us to be innovative when it comes to current and future grid technologies, which benefits customers and the communities we serve,” he added.
C Spire will contract for a portion of Alabama Power's fiber infrastructure to help support its offering of high-speed Internet in several communities in the metro Birmingham area and other parts of Alabama. Alabama Power is not providing broadband services directly to customers.
Learn more about C Spire’s broadband plans in Alabama here.
This post originally appeared on the C Spire Business blog at: http://blog.cspire.com/fiber-fast-business-internet-coming-to-alabama-0.
