How AT&T is Investing in Mississippi

What’s new: In Mississippi, we invested more than $1.3 billion in our network infrastructure from 2020-2024 to connect more people to greater possibility.

Cities and communities throughout Mississippi are seeing the impacts of this investment, including:

• Nearly $60 million in Hattiesburg
• Nearly $325 million in Jackson
• Nearly $225 million in Gulfport-Biloxi
• More than $60 million in Tupelo

Why it matters: Every American deserves access to fast, reliable connectivity when it matters most – whether it’s an important call to a family member or friend, the internet that powers work or online learning, or the connection that first responders rely on. It’s this connectivity that’s powering economic growth and supporting job creation across America.

Our mission: We’re investing across the country not only to boost network reliability and capacity, but also to expand broadband nationwide to help bridge the digital divide.

How we’re making it happen in Mississippi: Committed to expanding connectivity, our investment focuses on all facets of the network — including fiber, 5G and FirstNet,^® Built with AT&T.

• Expanding Access to Fiber: To help meet the demands for reliable, high-speed connections today – and in the future – we’re investing in our fiber network.
  • With more than 2.7 million strand miles of fiber in Mississippi, AT&T Fiber^®is now available to more than 340,000 customer locations in 70 cities across the state.  
  • With nearly 91 million fiber strand miles in 21 states, AT&T Fiber^® now passes nearly 29 million consumer and business locations.
  • When public entities team up with trusted providers, more Americans are connected to greater opportunity. In Louisiana, we’ve collaborated with localities to bring AT&T Fiber to more corners of the state.
    • DeSoto County fully connected for broadband internet
• Building Networks for the Next Century: To reach our goal and better serve our customers with faster, more reliable services, we’re actively investing to modernize our networks that will power us for the next century, not the last one. We’re working to exit our legacy copper network operations across the large majority of our wireline footprint by the end of 2029. Throughout this transition, no customer will lose voice or 911 services. We developed products like AT&T Phone-Advanced, a digital phone service that uses our reliable wireless network and any broadband connection, as a reliable alternative to plain old telephone service (POTS).
  • Today, AT&T Phone-Advanced is available in over 100 markets across 21 states, including Mississippi and will continue to expand to other markets and states across the country.
• Unlocking the Power of 5G: From rural communities to urban areas, our overall wireless voice and data network covers more than 99% of all Americans, including Mississippi. Our 5G network using low-band spectrum reaches more than 310 million people in more than 26,100 cities and towns in the U.S.
  • We’re working with businesses from manufacturing to healthcare to create new innovations and increase efficiencies with AT&T 5G.
  • For less densely populated areas we’re expanding our 5G network so people there can have access to reliable connectivity.
  • And we’re also working with AST SpaceMobile to one day offer voice, data, text and video services in remote, off-grid locations.
  • We also launched AT&T Internet Air, our fixed wireless home internet service delivered over our 5G network, an all-in-one device that powers strong Wi-Fi coverage in your home.
• Unprecedented Connectivity for First Responders: As public safety’s partner, we are bringing better connectivity to public safety when — and where — they need it. Now with more than 2.99M square miles of coverage, FirstNet has the largest network footprint in the country, covering more first responders than competing commercial networks, and we are only continuing to grow. As part of our 10-year, $8B+ investment initiative with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) to transform public safety’s communications, we’ve completed the buildout of 1,000 new FirstNet sites across the country – well ahead of schedule and almost twice as fast as we pledged – providing first responders with dedicated connectivity on public safety’s Band 14 spectrum. And we’re continuing to expand FirstNet with purpose-built FirstNet sites— based on public safety’s direct feedback and network considerations — focused on rural, tribal and remote areas of the country.
• In Mississippi, we’re connecting public safety agencies and organizations in 410 localities across the state.
• We’ve rolled out Band 14 on more than 1,100 sites across Mississippi to provide public safety with truly dedicated coverage and capacity.

And we’re not just investing in our network, we’re also investing in our communities. AT&T announced last year it’s committing an additional $3 billion by 2030 to help close the digital divide, bringing the company’s total commitment to $5 billion since 2021.

• To help bridge the divide in Moss Point, AT&T recently teamed up with Human-I-T to provide 125 free laptops for families and students served by the Moss Point School District Family Education Center. Learn more.

To keep up with all the latest updates from AT&T Mississippi, follow us on X @ATTPublicPolicy and on LinkedIn.