DC BLOX expands digital access from Myrtle Beach to Atlanta
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) — DC BLOX, which operates a data center and cable landing station in Market Common, recently completed its new dark fiber route connecting Myrtle Beach to Atlanta, Georgia.
The company works to expand digital access across the Southeast and beyond. The Market Common facility is connected to countries across the Atlantic through subsea cables used by Google and Meta. Now, it runs to one major digital hub in the Southeast.
“This is how you look at your Facebook page, you do your Google search through these cables,” said Anthony Harris, a DC BLOX subsea engineer.
The company said the connection is a big deal for broadening the scope of digital access across the Southeast. It says Atlanta is rapidly growing in communications and data centers.
The route runs from Myrtle Beac to near Charleston and through Augusta, Georgia, into downtown Atlanta.
Harris said the new connectivity will help serve rural and underserved areas along the way to Atlanta.
“Some of these are lifelines of communications, and it’s their only way out,” Harris said. “So, if we don’t do our job, people don’t have internet and can’t communicate.”
DC BLOX said it’s also looking to build a dark fiber ring around Atlanta connecting two data center facilities on either side of the city, furthering the east-west route.
Jerry Stell, manager of the Myrtle Beach data center and cable landing station, said subsea cables across the Atlantic constantly move data through fishing line-like cables but that dark fiber cable can be as active as a client needs it to be.
“What data comes across there?” Stell asked. “We don’t know, and we don’t ask. So, it’s all confidential data.”
There are eight hubs that help move the data to Atlanta, Stell said.
“We don’t manage the data itself, but we monitor it to make sure there are no breaks in the cables along the route, and if so, we dispatch appropriately to get these, you know, any kind of failures resolved,” Stell said.
Stell said DC BLOX plans to continue to expand digital access internationally and in the Southeast.
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Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly Twitter. You can also read more of her work, here.
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