{"id":80889,"date":"2025-05-07T04:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T04:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/80889\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T04:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T04:08:11","slug":"bessemer-city-council-approves-high-speed-internet-cables-for-city-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/80889\/","title":{"rendered":"Bessemer city council approves high-speed internet cables for city infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-left article-text\">BESSEMER, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wbrc.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WBRC<\/a>) &#8211; High-speed internet is making its way across the state of Alabama, and the\u00a0city of Bessemer is getting in on the action &#8211; free of charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The city council voted Tuesday to allow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alabamafibernetwork.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.alabamafibernetwork.com\/\"><b>Alabama Fiber Network<\/b><\/a> to run fiber-optic cable through several Bessemer locations that are being called \u201cCommunity Anchor Institutions\u201d (CAI).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">These CAIs include:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list | article-list\">\n<li>Bessemer City Hall<\/li>\n<li>Bessemer Fire Administrative Building<\/li>\n<li>Bessemer fire stations 1, 2, and 4<\/li>\n<li>Bessemer Police Department<\/li>\n<li>Bessemer Civic Center<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The laying of the cables will come at no cost to the city. It will be funded by grant money\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbrc.com\/2024\/02\/06\/governor-ivey-awards-188-million-middle-mile-broadband-projects-with-impact-across-state\/\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wbrc.com\/2024\/02\/06\/governor-ivey-awards-188-million-middle-mile-broadband-projects-with-impact-across-state\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>allocated by Governor Kay Ivey<\/b><\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0American Rescue Plan Funds\u00a0to improve internet connections across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Once the cables are installed, it will be up to the city to activate them and pay for the internet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI think COVID let all of us know that there was a need for something of this nature,\u201d said Bessemer Mayor Kenneth Gulley.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He recalls that some students in the Bessemer school system had a difficult time during the COVID pandemic completing schoolwork and attending classes online from home due to poor internet speeds in some parts of the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Gulley is hopeful that once fiber-optic cable is in place for critical infrastructure of the city, that same high-speed internet access can be expanded\u00a0to others living and working in Bessemer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201dInitially, what we ran into during COVID, there was just no fiber optics line and stuff close, so we couldn\u2019t do that,&#8221; he said. \u201cSo I\u2019m just glad to see that the state would make an initiative like that, and see what it will yield for the benefit of the citizens of Bessemer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Work to install the fiber-optic cable in Bessemer is expected to be finished in the early months of 2026. The entire statewide project is slated to be done in the same year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-left article-text\">Get news alerts in the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wbrc-fox6-news\/id449660326\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Apple App Store<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.raycom.wbrc&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Play Store<\/a> or subscribe to our email newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbrc.com\/newsletter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WBRC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BESSEMER, Ala. (WBRC) &#8211; High-speed internet is making its way across the state of Alabama, and the\u00a0city of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3161],"tags":[6304,39288,39285,3386,39284,3082,39287,53,16,15,39286],"class_list":{"0":"post-80889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-alabama","9":"tag-alabama-fiber-network","10":"tag-bessemer","11":"tag-covid","12":"tag-fiber-optic-cable","13":"tag-internet","14":"tag-myfoxal","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-wbrc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114464587967707764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}