Diamondhead first city on Mississippi Gulf Coast to receive C Spire's Fiber-to-the-Home services offering Gigabit speed internet access, award-winning live streaming TV and digital home phone

DIAMONDHEAD, Miss., Sept. 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- One of Mississippi's premiere resort communities is poised to become the first city on the Gulf Coast to receive C Spire's next-generation Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) services, including up to 1,000 Mbps internet access, award-winning live streaming TV and premium digital home phone.

Local government officials, business leaders and community representatives joined C Spire executives Thursday to announce the 8,071-population city located 50 miles northeast of New Orleans in Hancock County as the latest recipient of a suite of 21^st century technology services that will transform the way homeowners live, work and play.

The 11.7 square miles in the city will be divided into 10 fiber hoods covering over 3,500 homes by the Mississippi-based diversified telecommunications and technology services company, which started taking homeowner pre-orders for the service Thursday. 

"Fiber to the Home is a revolutionary technology that promises to boost home values, broaden entertainment opportunities, help expand the local economy and improve the quality of life for everyone," said Ashley Phillips, general manager of the C Spire Home Services subsidiary that manages the company's FTTH program.

Construction in Diamondhead will begin in December and is expected to be completed by next summer with the first installations and service activations in early 2019. Phillips said C Spire will keep residents updated on construction progress and as new areas receive the services.

The Diamondhead FTTH program promises to leverage the recent completion of new segment additions in South Mississippi and along the Gulf Coast to C Spire's 8,600 route miles of backbone fiber optic infrastructure that spans much of the Magnolia state.  "These services are future-proofed with the incredible capacity that this technology supports," Phillips said.

In addition to Gigabit-speed internet, which is available in only a handful of regions across the U.S., C Spire is offering Diamondhead residents digital home phone service and the nation's first app-based, live streaming digital commercial TV service, which was honored by the cable TV industry last year as the best television technology product in the U.S.

C Spire TV delivers advanced cable TV features that consumers love in convenient and simple apps that are designed to run on popular streaming devices, such as Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV and Roku TV – eliminating the need to outfit every TV in the home with a set top box and saving several hundred dollars a year in rental fees.

"We're excited about partnering with C Spire and becoming the first city on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to bring this game-changing technology to homeowners and families," said Diamondhead Mayor Thomas Schafer.  "A lot of companies talk about plans to bring advanced services, but C Spire is delivering on their promise."

Hancock County is one of the state's fastest growing areas and C Spire's Fiber-to-the-Home will help attract new investment and growth in the region, according to Board of Supervisors President Blaine LaFontaine. "Only a handful of communities around the U.S. have these cutting-edge, fiber-based broadband services – so Diamondhead is certainly well positioned for future success."

Tish Haas Williams, executive director of the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, said she expects the fiber optic infrastructure to boost home values and potentially lure new high-tech business investment to the county.  "It's happened in other areas and there's no reason to believe it won't happen here, especially if C Spire continues to deploy additional fiber in our region."

With the addition of Diamondhead, C Spire has rolled out ultra-fast Gigabit internet access and related services in 14 Mississippi markets, boosting overall broadband connection speeds in the state by 200 percent since 2014.  The suite of services is competitively priced with additional discounts for C Spire wireless customers. 

FTTH is part of the C Spire Tech Movement initiative designed to leverage the company's technology leadership and investments to help transform its service areas.  Other program elements include creation of an AI-infused digital customer care platform and other leadership initiatives to drive innovation and development of a 21^st century technology workforce.

To learn more about C Spire Fiber or find out if your home is in an area with this next-generation technology infrastructure, visit www.cspire.com/fiber.  To learn more about the C Spire Tech Movement, visit www.cspire.com/cms/wireless/tech-movement/.

About C Spire

C Spire is a diversified telecommunications and technology services company that provides world-class, customer-inspired wireless communications, 1 Gigabit consumer Internet access as well as a full suite of dedicated Internet, wireless, IP Voice, data and cloud services for businesses.  This news release and other announcements are available at www.cspire.com/news. For more information about C Spire, visit www.cspire.com or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cspire or Twitter at www.twitter.com/cspire.

SOURCE C Spire

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