DAILY CORINTHIAN Corinth readies fiber to the home proposal October 09, 2013 The City of Corinth is pushing

forward its campaign to have Corinth designated as one of C Spires first Fiber to the Home communities. Last month, C Spire announced its Get Fiber First initiative, a competition to become one of C Spires first launch locations for ultra high-speed broadband service to the home. Speeds for C Spires Fiber to the Home service are expected to be 100 times faster than most current broadband services currently available in the Corinth market. The ultrafast 1 GBPS Internet connection can also provide home phone and television service over fiber optic connections directly to the home. Fiber to the home greatly increases your current internet broadband speed and capacity, allowing streaming of multiple movies on multiple devices in the home, it provides web browsing with instant page changes, no buffering, and much more. The impact of the service on the Corinth School District would be significant. Corinth School District Superintendent Dr. Lee Childress says, Corinth Fiber to the Home will open many exciting opportunities for students and parents in the Corinth School District. This service will enable the Corinth Schools to explore many new technology opportunities for our students as we work to provide them with the technology, college, and career readiness skills they need to be successful in a global economy. Magnolia Regional Health Center officials say access to the high-speed service would provide benefits both to their operations and to their patients and staff. The Magnolia Regional Health Center Medical Staff and Board of Trustees made a proactive commitment to lead the implementation of several new electronic practices aimed at improving the safety of our patient population by transitioning to full Electronic Medical Record on October 1, 2013. In doing so our increased use of computer systems warrants the great need for increased bandwidth to our hospital and to our medical community. C-Spire selecting Corinth as the first launch location would be a benefit to the health and wellbeing of our patients, said MRHC CEO Ronny Humes. Corinth Mayor Tommy Irwin, with a team of local elected officials and community leaders, attended C Spires Town Hall Meeting in Ridgeland last week to learn more about the competition. Mayor Irwin states, Our goal is to put Corinth in a position to thrive and grow. C Spires Fiber to the Home service will allow our community to offer ultra fast broadband to our residents, putting us in select company considering only a host of cities around the country currently have such service. The possibilities are endless. The competition consists of two Phases. Phase 1 consists of a Request for Information (RFI) to local entities, combined with individual interest registrations. At the end of this phase C Spire will choose one or more finalist locations (city, county, or other district).

Corinth is currently in Phase 1. Phase 2 will challenge individuals to officially pre-register for service in neighborhoods of the finalist locations. A team of city and community leaders met and determined what needs to be done in order to complete the RFI. The City is working closely with the Corinth School District, Magnolia Regional Health Center and The Alliance to complete the RFI. The RFI response is due October 20. An important part of Phase I is determining the communitys level of interest and support for Fiber to the Home. Corinth cannot have a winning application and become a launch site in Mississippi without the involvement of the community. Individual registrations are fundamental in Phase I, said Gary Chandler, President of The Alliance. We are encouraging Corinthians to register their interest in the service. Our efforts to do this are manifold including, but not limited to a massive social media campaign, promotional booths at various events around town including Corinth High School home football games and the recent Hog Wild Festival, a digital billboard campaign and public service announcements. Chandler says the potential impact on the economic development front could be a game changer. This is another tool in our arsenal to use when manufacturers are looking at our community. Very few communities, specifically in our region, have such high-speed Internet service. In terms of recruiting, it truly opens up doors for us that we traditionally have not been able to crack. Corinth Alderman Bubba Labas said, We are very close to completing our proposal. This has been a full court press for the last two weeks and we believe our proposal is strong. As we understand it, the winning locations will be announced on November 4, so we need Corinth residents to sign up immediately. Our social media push to drive signups has been significant. Our theme is #CorinthFiberFirst and it is going viral. Corinthians may express their interest in the C Spire Get Fiber First service by going to http://www.cspire.com/fiberhome/fiber_signup.html. dailycorinthian.com 2013