Hargray Communications is a telecommunications provider based on
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Hilton Head Island, sometimes referred to as simply Hilton Head, is a South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry resort town and barrier island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is northeast of Savannah, Georgia, and southwest of C ...
, United States. It operates internet throughout the
Lowcountry
The Lowcountry (sometimes Low Country or just low country) is a geographic and cultural region along South Carolina's coast, including the Sea Islands. The region includes significant salt marshes and other coastal waterways, making it an impor ...
region of South Carolina and the Savannah region of Georgia. Hargray has a monopoly on parts of the Lowcountry offering
cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...
,
broadband Internet
In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...
, and
landline
A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...
services. Hargray formerly resold cellular phone service through
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
.
History
Hargray was founded in nearby
Hardeeville
Hardeeville is a city in Jasper and Beaufort counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 7,473 as of the 2020 census, an increase of over 150% since 2010. Hardeeville is included within the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufo ...
under the name ''Harcan Telephone''. Throughout the following decades, Hargray expanded in
Bluffton and eventually onto Hilton Head Island.
By the 1980s, Hargray began offering cable television service to customers in the region in addition to telephone service. In 2007, Hargray was acquired by Quadrangle Capital Partners.
Several years later, in 2010, Quadrangle unsuccessfully attempted to sell Hargray.
In May 2021, Hargray was acquired by
Cable One
Cable One, Inc. is an American broadband communications provider. Under the Sparklight brand, it provides service to 21 states and 900,000 residential and business customers. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, though it does not serve that ...
.
Data Publishing
Hargray established Data Publishing in 1986.
It is responsible for publishing all of the Horry Telephone Directories. The company continued to expand and publish directories for other companies including
Horry Telephone Cooperative
Horry Telephone Cooperative (HTC) is a Telephone company, telecommunications cooperative in Horry County, South Carolina, in the United States. It was founded in 1952 to serve the rural areas of Horry County where it was unprofitable for nationa ...
and
Windstream
Windstream Holdings, Inc., also doing business as Windstream Communications or Windstream, is a provider of voice and data network communications (broadband, VoIP, MPLS), and managed services ( virtual servers, managed firewall, data storage, clou ...
, among others. Under Quadrangle's ownership of Hargray, the company was ultimately sold to Horry Telephone Cooperative. The deal was completed in September 2012.
Acquisitions
Hargray has acquired several cable systems in its service area, including
Charter's system in
Beaufort Beaufort may refer to:
People and titles
* Beaufort (surname)
* House of Beaufort, English nobility
* Duke of Beaufort (England), a title in the peerage of England
* Duke of Beaufort (France), a title in the French nobility
Places Polar regions ...
as well as a few systems from
Shentel
Shentel, officially Shenandoah Telecommunications Company, is a publicly traded telecommunications company headquartered in Edinburg, Virginia. It operates a digital wireless and wireline network in rural Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pen ...
.
In February 2020, Hargray acquired Electronet, a fiber-based broadband communications company operating in
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In ...
.
Technology
Multiple technologies are employed depending on region, all reaching from the core
headend and
central office in Pritchardville, South Carolina.
For television, Hargray deploys
IPTV
Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...
or
QAM
Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is the name of a family of digital modulation methods and a related family of analog modulation methods widely used in modern telecommunications to transmit information. It conveys two analog message signa ...
digital TV service over coaxial cable. IPTV is handled via the
Ericsson Mediaroom
Mediaroom is a collection of software for operators to deliver IPTV (IPTV) subscription services, including content-protected, live, digital video recorder, video on demand, multiscreen, and applications. These services can be delivered via a ran ...
platform.
Voice services (
POTS) are carried over both
VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
and copper
telephone line
A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or ot ...
.
Internet is provided by either
DOCSIS
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable televisio ...
3.0 cable modems,
ADSL
Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...
modems, or
fiber to the home
Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber opt ...
. Hargray also provides public WiFi service and dial-up to customers.
As of September 27, 2012, Hargray has completed an integration of 7,000 Charter customers in the Beaufort, South Carolina area. Hargray Communications Group has 350 total employees across all of its locations and generates $101.43 million in 2017 for sales (USD).
References
External links
Hargray
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Cable television companies of the United States
Telecommunications companies of the United States
Internet service providers of the United States
Companies based in South Carolina
Telecommunications companies established in 1949
1949 establishments in South Carolina
2021 mergers and acquisitions
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