Source: News Channel 2
by: Sophie Brams
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)- South Carolina is set to receive half a billion dollars as part of a nationwide effort to ensure all Americans have access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet service.
The Palmetto State will be awarded $551.5 million from the Biden Administration’s $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program as part of the “Internet for All” initiative, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced Monday.
The announcement comes as President Biden pledged that every household in the nation would have access to high-speed internet by 2030 using cables made in the United States, calling the service an “absolute necessity.”
Currently, NTIA estimates that about 119,580 households and small businesses in South Carolina lack access to a high-speed internet connection.
According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), high-speed internet is at or above 25 Mbps for download and 3 Mbps for upload speed.
“You take it for granted in some of our bigger cities how great the service is, but there’s a huge disparity so we want to get that fixed,” South Carolina Broadband Office Director Jim Stritzinger said. “We feel great urgency to get it done.”
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