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By DONNAMY STEELE | Special to the Reporter

After 70 years of business, internet service provider C-Spire is branching into the state of Alabama, including Shelby County.

C-Spire is a privately held internet service provider that started in rural Mississippi. Managing Director Ben and Sr. VP Ben Moncrief said they are excited to expand over the next few months in Alabaster, Helena and Pelham.

“We’ve been in the telecommunications business for 70 years,” Moncrief said. “We started in rural Mississippi in a place called Meadville, Mississippi, and for the last seven years since 2014 we’ve been doing gigabit fiber to the home. So, we take fiber optic cable all the way from Chicago, Atlanta or Dallas, and we bring that all the way to your home.”

C-Spire received their franchise agreement with the city of Alabaster in January and Moncrief said they are moving on to the next steps toward servicing the area. This allows them to begin construction within the next 30 days, he said, and construction has already begun in Helena and Pelham as well.

“We launched our first market in Alabama in November,” Moncrief said. “It was in Jasper and now we’re launching Trussville here in the next few days. Then our next markets are in what we call North Shelby County, so in Pelham, Alabaster and Helena.”

The customer inspired business plans to offer service to customers in Alabaster within the next three or four months, Moncrief said.

“You’ll see our little blue trucks moving around Shelby County here soon,” he added. “They are probably already in Helena and Pelham, but certainly a great deal more as we start scheduling installations.”

The company is going from the north areas of the county and moving their way down, Moncrief said, but they plan to service the areas with the highest demand first. To measure this, Moncrief asks everyone interested in C-Spire to visit Cspire.com/alfiber to request service.

“We want to serve ultimately the whole city, but we have to decide where we’re going to go first by where we see demand,” Moncrief said. “So people going to our website, which is C-spire.com/alfiber, can go there, click on home services, and you can input your address that tells us you’re interested. As we see the dots pop up on that map for people who have gone to the website, we will see where the demand is and try to service those areas first.”