By Paige Gurgainers
AT&T completed a $881K project in the Village of Dixie Inn just last month. This project was a part of a GUMBO (Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunities) Grant Program. This program aims to facilitate broadband services across the state.
Regional Director of AT&T Levar Greenhouse
“The project we were awarded for Dixie Inn started late last year and was completed in February,” said Regional Director for AT&T Levar Greenhouse. “When a project is complete, we like to go to the local governmental bodies and let them know the overall cost and if you have any issues, you can call me or my peers, to get those issues resolved.”
Webster Parish received 3 grants, one of them being the GUMBO grant, in the amount of $661K.
The completion of this project in Dixie Inn has equipped 251 customers (residential and business) with reliable broadband services with possibly more being considered in the next round of funding.
“The Connect La grant gives us the ability to come to areas that may not have been considered up front, so we will look at where they may have not expanded then we bring that back to our engineering team and see how we may can expand beyond those points of the project,” said Greenhouse. “The fiber also gives us the ability to look at other infrastructure such as cell towers, so we are looking at how we can expand beyond Dixie Inn.”
According to Webster Parish Police Jury President Jim Bonsall, the state of Louisiana will be releasing maps within the next three weeks that will show every resident and business that is not currently being served and will be providing another round of the GUMBO grant.
Bonsall said, “I am going to ask every juror to go through their district on these maps and make sure everybody is going to have the opportunity for service. I want to make sure we do our due diligence and make sure everyone has an opportunity to receive broadband.”
Greenhouse encouraged the jury to not only examine the rural areas that do not currently have service, but to even look in the more urban areas because there may be some single streets that are missed when these projects are completed.
A ribbon cutting ceremony and media event is in the planning stages now for the project in Dixie Inn. More information on this will be released in the coming weeks.