COLUMBIA, SC — The South Carolina Broadband Office (SCBBO) is pleased to announce that it has updated its statewide maps to reflect the progress that has been made through previous funding and grant opportunities through June 30, 2024. Updated statewide information and statistics by county, as well as legislative and congressional districts, are available via SCDigitalDrive.org.

Of note, the SCBBO is proud to share that the new June 30, 2024, map set is based upon location-level information from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Broadband Service Location (BSL) fabric and focuses on underserved homes (those with less than 100 Mbps download / 20 Mbps upload service) in South Carolina. In addition, this map set reflects the full commitment of state managed American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) investments, federally managed FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Funds (RDOF), US Department of Agriculture (USDA) ReConnect, over 4.3 million Ookla® Speedtest Intelligence® records, and the results of the SC Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Challenge.

“This map release documents rapid progress toward our goal of eliminating the digital divide in South Carolina,” said Jim Stritzinger, Director of the SCBBO. “We are incredibly grateful for the hard work and dedication of our Internet Service Providers and the support of Governor McMaster and the SC General Assembly. I am extremely proud of the technical achievements of my team to make this map release possible.”

As of June 30, 2024, there are approximately 128,149 underserved residential and 22,554 underserved business BSLs (impacting approximately 350,424 residents) in South Carolina; however, when construction on currently funded projects is complete, the total number of underserved BSLs will fall to 31,746 by December 2030.

Please note all state-managed ARPA investments are required to be construction-complete by June 30, 2026; however, federally managed FCC RDOF and USDA ReConnect investments may not complete until 2030. Federally managed projects are outside of SCBBO control. In addition, each BSL can represent one or more homes or businesses. For example, one BSL could equal 32 homes — e.g., an apartment complex with 32 units.

Statewide, over 505,000 (~25%) residential locations now subscribe to high-speed fiber and nearly 1,200,000 (~61%) additional residential locations subscribe to high-speed cable broadband.

More information about the broadband grant programs administered by the SCBBO can be found at ors.sc.gov/broadband.

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The SCBBO is housed within the state’s Office of Regulatory Staff. The SCBBO serves as the central broadband planning body to coordinate with federal, state, regional, local, and private entities, to the extent practicable, to engage in the continued deployment of broadband in the state.