Internet outages spike across Beaufort County as Sparklight confirms local fiber cut
Update: Service returned to the area late Tuesday night after crews completed repairs to the cut fiber, Sparklight announced at 11:55 p.m.
Hundreds of Sparklight customers were without internet in Beaufort County and beyond due to a third-party fiber cut, the company said Monday afternoon.
Sparklight, which rebranded from Hargray Communications in August of last year, said residents of Beaufort, Lady’s Island, Okatie, Ridgeland, Estill and “a portion of Hardeeville” were affected by the outage.
“Our technicians are on-site and working diligently to repair and restore services as quickly as possible,” read a social media statement posted around 2 p.m. Monday.
Local outage reports began to spike around 1:45 p.m., according to Downdetector, which monitors internet issues across the country.
Owned by Cable One, Sparklight serves over 1 million customers in 24 states. It’s the phone and internet provider for the vast majority of residents and businesses in the Beaufort County area.
Phones went down around 1:45 p.m. at the offices of Beaufort County Animal Services. Many county offices use Sparklight as an internet and phone provider, so issues across local government buildings were likely.
911 services across the county were unaffected by the outage, according to Master Sgt. Danny Allen, a spokesperson for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. The department’s non-emergency dispatch line was still operational, he added.
Monday’s outage follows a 10-hour internet disruption in September, less than a month after Sparklight’s rebrand. Caused by four separate fiber cuts made by a “third party” in Georgia and South Carolina, the outage plunged the workday into chaos for thousands of residents and local businesses.
This story was originally published February 3, 2025 at 3:23 PM.
