Jim Stritzinger, Director of the South Carolina Broadband Office, likes “to think of the work we’re doing as an Olympic relay race.”
The first leg, he told Telecompetitor, was the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The second leg was federal funding like the USDA’s ReConnect Loan and Grant Program and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). The third leg was the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). And the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program is the fourth and final leg.
“Every state has been using a natural flow of federal resources and state resources — baton passes from one program to the next — to get us where we are today,” Stritzinger said.
Under his leadership, broadband in South Carolina has come a long way. Stritzinger remembers, with the precision of a former engineer, the key dates that brought him to where he is today. As he does, he marvels at the speed with which South Carolina’s broadband resources have grown, particularly in the past four years.
Here’s how he tells it:
In December 2009, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded grants to 15 states — including South Carolina — for the creation of the first broadband availability maps.
In 2014, Stritzinger became the Executive Director of a nonprofit called Connect South Carolina, one of the state’s early broadband access and adoption efforts.
Stritzinger worked as an entrepreneur in the private sector between 2004 to 2021, focusing on broadband map creation especially in the later years. “I was trying to build a better mousetrap,” he said, by combining Ookla speed test data with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) data.
Meanwhile, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster had formed Excel South Carolina to determine the state’s growth priorities, one of which was broadband. Governor McMaster reached out to Stritzinger to work for the state — initially as a broadband coordinator, because the state broadband office had not yet been established. Stritzinger’s first day working for the state was March 25, 2021.
The South Carolina Broadband Office was established on July 1, 2021. At that point, Stritzinger said, he had a $30 million budget thanks to an investment from the state legislature.
“Fast forward less than two years — June 23, 2023 — I was seated in the East Room of the White House with President Biden on the stage, and I learned our budget now exceeded $1 billion… it was really a pinch-yourself moment to see how far it had come.”
One Leg at a Time
Continuing his relay race analogy, Stritzinger said, “While we have been executing and running the third leg of the race, we’ve also been planning for BEAD.” Because the ARPA funds had to be fully deployed by the end of 2024, that was the state’s front-burner issue even as they prepared for the BEAD Program.
Stritzinger said South Carolina was happy to take the BEAD process slowly. “Some states wanted to go first; I wanted to go last. It would have been impossible to deploy BEAD the same time as ARPA — the ISPs can’t keep up, and the rules are totally different.”
By taking one set of funding at a time, South Carolina has dramatically reduced its number of locations eligible for broadband. “It’s tough to do the exact math,” said Stritzinger, “but if I had to wager, in July 2021 we probably had north of 300,000 [underserved and unserved] locations in the state.” Today, as the state prepares to launch its BEAD application portal, that number is down to about 29,000.
Using Mapping to Address Unserved and Underserved Locations
Under Stritzinger’s leadership, the South Carolina Broadband Office relies heavily on mapping and speed data to track and prioritize unserved and underserved locations. Employing Ookla speed test data — as he did in his entrepreneurial days — Stritzinger has a sophisticated mapping system that allows his team to track the progress of broadband deployment in South Carolina over time.
For example, the three maps below show speed test data for various regions of South Carolina, broken into hexagonal areas (using a system developed by Uber called H3, the Hexagonal Hierarchical Spatial Index). These images — from September 2023, June 2024, and March 2025 — show broadband deployment across the state.
Stritzinger and his team can drill down into specific regions to see the development in smaller areas, too, as shown here.
The South Carolina Broadband Office does not pay out grant funds to providers until those providers can prove that a project is finished. This is done via geotagged photos, a review of finances and invoices, and the speed test data from the state’s maps. “If they all light up, we can confidently pay the final check,” Stritzinger said.
BEAD and South Carolina’s Future
“When we make the final baton pass and do our final application round, we have a high degree of confidence that we’ll get to internet for all,” Stritzinger told Telecompetitor. “We should have plenty of financial resources to do it, and we have the technical precision to make sure we’re getting it done.”
He noted that the 29,000 remaining locations represent less than 1% of the total number of broadband-eligible locations in South Carolina. The 29,000 includes residential locations (about 20,000), businesses, and community anchor institutions.
With BEAD around the corner, South Carolina has 37 prequalified entities and is currently finalizing its eligibility map. Stritzinger is confident that South Carolina will have its broadband eligibility map updated and its BEAD application launched in the second quarter of this year.
Beyond BEAD, Stritzinger is looking forward to non-deployment programs the state will launch, with plans already in place for the first initiatives in healthcare and K-12 education. “There’s cool stuff you can do if you’re creative. We’re working closely with the governor’s office and state leadership to come up with ideas for non-deployment funds.”
In the meantime, Stritzinger is just happy to be approaching the final leg of the race. “It’s the honor of my lifetime to be in this role,” he said. “I’m blessed — surrounded by an amazingly talented team, arguably one of the best in the U.S.” Additional information about broadband in South Carolina, including links to state funding resources, awards made, state-specific Telecompetitor coverage and more, can be found on the Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
