Bamberg, South Carolina (March 2022) - South Carolina’s Broadband Office hopes to assess how large of a demand for internet access there is across the state, and it is asking for the public’s help to do so. The broadband office has designed a survey you can go fill out if you don’t have internet at your home. Officials will use that data plus data from internet providers to make accurate maps of the state.

These maps, the website and the survey show where in the state there is internet access and where there are holes, the Director of South Carolina’s Broadband Office Jim Stritzinger says.

This is all in an effort to gain a better understanding of where there should be more investment, where more broadband or internet infrastructure needs to be built and where internet providers need to expand, according to Stritzinger.

You can go to this website to fill out the survey if you don’t have internet at your home. It asks for information, including your address, who’s living at the home, whether internet providers won’t provide service or whether it’s just too expensive and other details.

"We get the maps as accurate as we can but inevitably we have one customer or another—it might be a new neighborhood or a little nook or cranny within an area— it might look like it’s served but a resident can’t get it," Stritzinger says. "That’s where the surveys come in. It helps us ground truth the maps themselves and make sure they’re super accurate."

The website also allows access to free internet speed tests. The website shows more than 221,000 housing units in the state don’t have access to the FCC recommended internet service level.

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