Mississippi Investigates AT&T $300 Million Plan To Expand Rural Broadband

A Mississippi Public Service Commissioner has signed an investigative subpoena, AP said, seeking records from AT&T related to the company’s claim to have made internet service available to 133,000 locations in the state through the Connect America Fund, a federal program for expanding broadband in rural parts of the country.

Students in rural and low-income parts of the nation have been at a disadvantage during the coronavirus pandemic as schools were shuttered and distance learning took place at home, in a bid to slow the spread of the deadly disease.

The subpoena required the Dallas-based company to produce documents showing the number of actual subscribers to AT&T’s fixed wireless service within the 133,000 locations the company says it provided service to, according to the AP; it also seeks information on the number of complaints filed with the company by customers who have taken service and the number of residents who applied for fixed wireless service based on AT&T’s claim that it was available and were later determined not to be in an area covered.

AT&T, in an email to Forbes, said the company complies with the law and requirements of the fund and is “confident that we will exceed the final [Connect America II] goal of making high-speed internet access available to 133,000 rural Mississippi homes and businesses by the end of this year.”