D.C. Memo: Does South Carolina Need a Dime from the BEAD Program?
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Palmetto State: Does South Carolina really need the BEAD program? It has been doing so well on its own without the Biden-crafted broadband subsidy plan. In a surprising development, South Carolina broadband officials disclosed Friday that the state was just inches away from closing its digital divide before the arrival of any BEAD program money. The Palmetto State said it would need just $40 million from BEAD – a pittance for a state with a $40.2 billion budget – to connect the remaining 20,480 locations. (About half these locations are going to LEO operators Starlink and Project Kuiper.) An odd thing was that Gov. Henry McMaster (R) said earlier in the year his state’s novel, “agile,” and highly effective deployment methods had cut the unserved candidate pool from 300,000 in July 2021 to about 29,000 by April 2025, a 45-month window. If the state had kept up that pace from April through August 2025 – about 6,000 new connections a month – South Carolina would today have zero eligible BEAD locations. So what happened, Gov. McMaster? (More after paywall.)
