Tom Barton covers breaking news for The Island Packet. He is a Davenport, Iowa, native and 2007 graduate of Iowa State University. Before coming to the Island Packet he worked as a reporter at The Des Moines Register. He moved to Bluffton in July 2010. | 
Brian Heffernan covers the Town of Hilton Head Island for The Island Packet. He is a native of St. Louis, Missouri and a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. | Hargray announced Thursday the completion of a nearly $1 million construction project installing fiber optic cable from Hilton Head to Daufuskie Island.
The locally-based telecommunications company began construction late in 2011. Previously, Daufuskie Island was served with wireless microwave communications equipment, limiting reliability and the amount of bandwidth and capacity available, according to the company.
The project involved boring under the Calibogue Sound from South Beach in Sea Pines to install the cable. Hargray worked closely with the Community Services Associates in Sea Pines to minimize disruption to nearby residents.
Residential and business customers can now enjoy improved quality, reliability and increased capacity to the island, according to Hargray. Modern microwave will continue to serve as a means of communications redundancy, the company said in a news release.