4G LTE & 5G Coverage In Charleston

The table below shows the proportion of Charleston with coverage from different cellular technologies.

Network	4G Coverage	5G Coverage
AT&T	97%	65%
T-Mobile	93%	87%
Verizon	99%	91%
Dish	0%	78%

Don't be alarmed by Dish's lack of 4G coverage in Charleston. Dish has a newly-built network that's 5G-only.

US Cellular And Dish Roaming Coverage

US Cellular does not have native coverage in Charleston. However, some US Cellular subscribers may still have coverage in Charleston thanks to roaming agreements.

The 78% figure for Dish may understate what subscribers in Charleston experience after accounting for roaming agreements.

Charleston Cell Signal Strength

There are 3,784 map hexes within the census-defined boundaries of Charleston. The table below shows the proportion of hexes at various levels of signal strength. Where both 4G and 5G coverage is available, data is drawn from whichever technology offers a stronger signal.

Network	Strong	Decent	Weak	None
AT&T	6%	46%	45%	3%
T-Mobile	13%	57%	24%	7%
Verizon	15%	57%	27%	1%
Dish	4%	53%	21%	22%

For most purposes, decent signals are perfectly sufficient. Weak or non-existent signals cause far greater degradation in user experience.

Due to data-reliability concerns, 538 hexes in Charleston that fall in bodies water, along rivers, or near shorelines are excluded from the table above.

Crowdsourced Coverage Data In Charleston

Coverage Critic has 36,021 crowdsourced data points from 737 map hexes within the boundaries of Charleston. Data is available for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

Network	Unique Hexes	Total Observations
AT&T	492	12,704
T-Mobile	569	12,486
Verizon	504	10,775

Click here to toggle to the map's crowdsourced data layer.

South Carolina State-Wide Coverage Scores

Network	Coverage Score
Verizon	8.8 / 10
AT&T	8.6 / 10
T-Mobile	8.2 / 10

Data Sourcing

Coverage maps draw on data from the FCC's Broadband Data Collection and Coverage Critic's crowdsourcing.

The coverage information for Charleston is rated as medium-high confidence. Documentation is available elsewhere covering limitations of Coverage Critic's approach.