S.C. Mayor Wants ISPs to Increase Network Redundancy

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2024 – A South Carolina mayor is advocating for more network redundancy after cut lines left thousands without Internet service for many hours in coastal areas of South Carolina in a September event.

“Internet outages, whether caused by severed fiber cable, natural disasters, or cyberattacks, can literally paralyze communities, businesses, and essential services, especially emergency services,” Beaufort Mayor Phil Cromer said in a Wednesday opinion with The Island News. “I am confident ISPs currently have some level of redundancy, but after recent outages, including Hurricane Helene, expansion of more resilient networks is an absolute must.”

Beaufort is located south of Charleston on South Carolina’s coastline. The city has a population of about 14,000.

The 10-hour long outage on Sept. 24 affected thousands of Hargray Internet customers in the city and neighboring areas. The outage was caused by fiber cuts attributed to a third-party.

According to Hargray, owned by Cable One, the outage resulted from a rare occurrence of damage to both its primary and redundant lines in four locations. It said technicians worked overnight to restore service.

Hargray customers are set to receive credits for the outage reflected in their internet bills for the month.

In response to the outages, Cromer said that he “would welcome a meeting with ISPs to share their current redundancy efforts and plans for future resiliency of their networks.”

To date, Cromer said that he has not received any responses from ISPs.

Cable One, based in Phoenix, provides broadband connections to more than one million customers across 24 states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.