Columbia and Camden companies partner to improve rural broadband.

• Position: South Carolina, STL, TruVista

A pair of South Carolina companies are working together to improve internet connectivity I rural South Carolina.

STL, headquartered in Columbia with a manufacturing plant in Lugoff, and TruVista, headquartered in Chester, are investing heavily in manufacturing and building fiber networks, the companies said in a news release.

STL is an optical and digital solutions company. TruVista is a 125-year-old company that provides broadband services and applications.

STL has invested significantly in its state-of-the-art fiber optic technology manufacturing facility in Lugoff, with end-to-end advanced automation, the news release said. In a similar vein, TruVista, which also serves customers in Georgia, is investing more than $12 million in rural broadband, a significant portion of which will be dedicated to South Carolina. It is now expanding fiber optic connectivity across rural South Carolina, enabling residents to access reliable internet at speeds of 1 Gbps. This strategic alignment paves the way for a long-standing relationship between the two companies, they said in the release.

Since 2021, STL has provided specialized optical fiber cables spanning multi-loose tube, high-fiber count cables to TruVista. The company has also supplied advanced cable types to enable TruVista to deploy efficient fiber-based broadband network architecture across South Carolina.

"Partnering with TruVista to build rural connectivity infrastructure in South Carolina is an exhilarating opportunity for us," STL's Optical...