Delta Business Journal
Fiber Optic Groundbreaking
Took place in Mound Bayou on Aug. 5
DBJ
On Monday, (August 5) a groundbreaking ceremony took place in Mound Bayou for an upcoming fiber optic network expansion that will soon take place there. Arriva, formally known as Mound Bayou Telephone & Communications, will launch a $3.5 million project that will provide Mound Bayou, Winstonville, and other locations in Bolivar County with gigabit speed Internet service. Arriva received the ReConnect 4 grant from the USDA last year.
Mound Bayou mayor, Leighton Aldridge, as well as Winstonville’s mayor, Henry Perkins, attended the event. Other dignitaries and community leaders also attended such as Delta State President, Dan Ennis and USDA State Director Dr. Trina George. United States Senator, Roger Wicker was also in attendance.
“We are blessed to have many big cities in Mississippi; however we all come from a state that is full of small towns and rural communities,” said Wicker. “My father grew up in Hickory Flat, a very rural area. Back in the 1920s in Benton County and everywhere else in rural Mississippi, the issue then was rural electrification. And, until the government came in and decided to subsidize the electrification of places like Hickory Flat, Mound Bayou and the vast number of rural communities and small towns all over America, people like my father and others were at a great disadvantage.”
Wicker went on to say that like rural America in the 1920s and 1930s that needed electrification, a similar situation exists today in rural America due to the lack of broadband access.
“If you are trying to run a business, or involved in healthcare, education, government or economic development, you’re not part of the 21st Century unless you have access to the Internet and broadband,” said Wicker.
“We are thrilled to build-out northern Bolivar County with fiber optic connection,” said Arriva co-owner and Chief Marketing Officer, Ali Phillips, who had driven in from Nashville to attend the groundbreaking. Phillips then thanked several who played a role in helping bring the project to fruition such as USDA, Delta Health Alliance, Mound Bayou Housing Authority, Mayors Aldridge and Perkins, Delta Health Center, Peter’s Pottery, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Representative Trent Kelly, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and Senator Wicker.
“We’ve put together a lot of projects around the state and Senator Wicker has been extremely supportive,” said Phillips.
“I have been happy to be a bi-partisan warrior for connectivity,” said Wicker. “I was very happy to be part of a group of Republicans and Democrats who voted for the Infrastructure Bill and we wouldn’t have gotten it passed without Republicans and Democrats in the Senate who attended meetings in the Oval Office with President Biden to work out the details of the bill. This is the kind of groundbreaking that we need to see a lot more of.”
For more information on Arriva, visit www.goarriva.com.