House Bill 786 Summary

• Establishes the "Keep Mississippi Connected Fund" with minimum funding of $25,000,000 to support high-cost providers offering local exchange telephone and broadband services in rural areas.

• Creates a state policy ensuring universal availability of affordable local exchange telephone service and broadband access, with the Public Service Commission to issue guidelines for fund administration within 12 months.

• Requires public utilities and voice/broadband service providers competing with utilities to contribute to the fund as determined by the Public Utilities Staff, with fund distribution to eligible high cost providers based on demonstrated service costs.

• Revises the definition of "broadband services" to require minimum speeds of 4 megabits per second downstream and 1 megabit per second upstream (or higher benchmarks set by the Federal Communications Commission).

• Clarifies the Public Service Commission's authority to regulate telecommunications services while maintaining the commission's jurisdiction over the Keep Mississippi Connected Fund provisions and customer service agreements.