Best Internet Providers in Charleston, South Carolina

I live just under 200 miles from Charleston, South Carolina, and let me be fully transparent: When I visit, the last thing on my mind is my broadband options. I’m usually focused on fluffy biscuits, sandy beaches and bustling markets. However, Charleston residents have a solid lineup of cable and fiber internet service choices offered by a wide variety of providers.

What is the best internet provider in Charleston?

CNET’s pick for the best internet provider in Charleston is AT&T Fiber. However, Holy City residents have many choices, including fiber plans from AT&T and local provider Home Telecom and cable connections from Xfinity or Spectrum. There’s also 5G home internet from T-Mobile Home Internet or Verizon 5G Home Internet. 

According to the Federal Communications Commission, 100% of Charleston households have access to a broadband connection (defined as 100 megabits per second download and 20Mbps upload speeds), and 97% are eligible for plans that offer download speeds up to 250Mbps. That’s unusual. In South Carolina’s capital city of Columbia, for example, 92% have access to internet plans that fast, which would allow a household of four to comfortably stream shows, work from home and game simultaneously, per FCC guidelines.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

Other available Charleston residential internet providers

Charleston has more ISPs than many other cities in the US, providing a rather extraordinary range of options. Here are some other providers worth considering.

• Home Telecom: This company covers about 8% of Charleston, with availability mostly in the Daniel Island area. Its fiber-optic plans offer 300Mbps, 500Mbps, 1 gig or 2 gig for $60, $70, $80 or $100 monthly — which is a bit more expensive than AT&T’s Fiber plans. But it’s a local outfit, equipment is included and there are no data caps or contracts.
• Satellite internet: We recommend avoiding satellite internet in Charleston, given that cheaper and faster options are widely available. Satellite internet is best for rural areas that cable and fiber don’t reach. If that’s where you live, Hughesnet and Viasat are the most prominent providers, though each requires a two-year contract. Elon Musk’s Starlink, which offers higher download speeds and lower latency, although it requires $499 for a standard installation, not including the monthly rate of $120 per month.
• Spectrum Internet: Charter Communications’ home internet service is available to about 5% of the area, mostly north of the city in Ladson and Summerville. There are three different cable internet plans: 300Mbps for $50 per month, 500Mbps for $70 monthly and a gigabit offering for $90 per month. There are no data caps or contracts. Prices increase by $30 monthly after the first year.
• Verizon 5G Home Internet: Like T-Mobile, Verizon uses its cellular network to wirelessly provide home broadband connections. It offers some plans with higher maximum download speeds than T-Mobile (1,000Mbps vs. 245), but it’s only available to about 23% of Charleston households.

Pricing info on Charleston home internet service

The average starting price for internet in Charleston is around $46 per month — on par with other cities, including Austin, Dallas and Philadelphia. 

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

Charleston broadband speeds

According to the FCC, 100% of Charleston residents have access to broadband internet and, even more impressively, more than 43% are eligible for gig speed connections (940-1,000Mbps) from either AT&T Fiber, Home Telecom, Spectrum or Xfinity. AT&T also offers multigigabit plans up to 5 gigs (5,000Mbps). 

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

How CNET chose the best internet providers in Charleston

Internet service providers are numerous and regional. Unlike the latest smartphone, laptop, router or kitchen tool, it’s impractical to personally test every ISP in a given city. So what’s our approach? For starters, we tap into a proprietary database of pricing, availability and speed information that draws from our own historical ISP data, partner data and mapping information from the Federal Communications Commission at FCC.gov. 

This guide leverages an in-house artificial intelligence tool called RAMP, which is trained on our own writing and uses our database to generate content about specific internet service providers that our writers can use in determining and presenting our picks for a given guide. Check CNET’s AI policy for more information about how our teams use (and don’t use) AI tools.

Because our database is not exhaustive, we go to the FCC’s website to check the primary data for ourselves and make sure we’re considering every ISP that provides service in an area. Plans and prices also vary by location, so we input local addresses on provider websites to find the specific options available to residents. We look at sources, including the American Customer Satisfaction Index and J.D. Power, to evaluate how happy customers are with an ISP’s service. ISP plans and prices are subject to frequent changes; all information provided is accurate as of our prepublication fact-check.

Once we have this localized information, we ask three main questions: 

1. Does the provider offer access to reasonably fast internet speeds? 
2. Do customers get decent value for what they’re paying? 
3. Are customers happy with their service? 

While the answer to those questions is often layered and complex, the providers who come closest to “yes” on all three are the ones we recommend. To explore our process in more depth, visit our how we test ISPs page.

What’s the bottom line on Charleston internet providers?

Residents of Charleston have a variety of options when it comes to choosing a broadband provider. Xfinity covers nearly every address in the city, and some households can get faster upload speeds through fiber connections from AT&T and local provider Home Telecom. And If it’s cheap internet you’re after, look no further than WOW — it has some of the lowest starting prices you’ll find anywhere in the US which don’t spike after 1-2 years of use.

Internet providers in Charleston FAQs