By Phil Cromer
Our dependence on the internet for the transaction of business, communication, and everything in between highlights the essential role that internet service providers (ISPs) afford the public. This was never more apparent than in the recent loss of service for thousands of customers of Hargray/Sparklight that shut down many operations in coastal South Carolina and Georgia on Sept. 24, 2024.
According to reports, the incident was due to a third-party vendor cutting two fiber cables sparking the outages of cellular and internet service. In January of this year, another such incident affected Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, and Prichardville due to a severed fiber cable.
Internet outages, whether caused by severed fiber cable, natural disasters, or cyberattacks, can literally paralyze communities, businesses, and essential services, especially emergency services. This reality prioritizes the need for ISPs to ramp up network redundancy measures to protect our digital future in the Lowcountry area.
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.
I, and other local leaders, would welcome a meeting with ISPs to share their current redundancy efforts and plans for future resiliency of their networks.
Philip Cromer is the Mayor of Beaufort.
