Internet competition in every South Dakota county
66 counties, 391,050 residential locations, counted block by block from the FCC's own filing. The counties with the worst competition scores in South Dakota are single-cooperative territory, and unlike North Dakota that does not mean they are fibered: 5 of 14 have no fiber gap at all. The one with the best competition score still has no fiber in 20.4% of it.
The finding: the competition score and the fiber gap are different problems here
Our national study ranks South Dakota 49 of 52 for wired competition: 35.8% of residential locations sit in a census block where at most one wired company reports service. The county view is where you find out what that number is actually made of, and in this state the answer is not the one North Dakota gave.
14 South Dakota counties score 99.5% or higher, holding 28,323 residential locations. 5 of those 14 have no locations at all in a block without fiber, and gigabit availability across them runs 2.0% to 100.0%.
The last column of the table below names the operator reaching the widest share of each. Across that group they are: CRST Telephone Authority, Golden West Telecommunications, ITC, Santel, Venture Communications Cooperative Inc, West River Telecommunications Cooperative. In North Dakota that column was rural cooperatives that had built fiber to everybody in their own territory, which is why the monopoly score there measures territory rather than deprivation. It does not read that way here: only 5 of the 14 are without a fiber gap, and gigabit availability across them starts at 2.0%. Both things the score can mean are present in South Dakota, and the state figure cannot tell them apart. That is the argument for reading this table rather than the ranking.
So the competition figure here is measuring both, and the counties it is worth acting on are the ones low on the fiber column rather than high on the monopoly column. A block with one company is a monopoly by any definition, and a resident there has no alternative and no competitive pressure on price. Both things are true at once, and a number that cannot tell them apart should say so rather than be quietly averaged into a national ranking.
It inverts in the cities, which is the other half of the point. Lincoln County has the best competition figure in the state at 4.6%, and 20.4% of its locations are in a block where nobody reports fiber at all. Minnehaha County, the largest by locations, is 13.0% and 16.6%.
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Every South Dakota county
Sorted by the share of residential locations in a block with at most one wired company, worst first. The first three columns are computed here from the block level filing. Gigabit is the FCC's own county figure, which is the finest grain they publish speed at.
| County | Residential locations | At most one wired company | No fiber in the block | Gigabit available | Widest reaching wired operator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall River County | 4,984 | 100.0% | 1.2% | 85.2% | Golden West Telecommunications (100%) |
| Tripp County | 3,276 | 100.0% | 2.1% | 94.5% | Golden West Telecommunications (100%) |
| Clark County | 2,221 | 100.0% | 2.3% | 96.5% | ITC (96%) |
| Potter County | 2,132 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | Venture Communications Cooperative Inc (100%) |
| Corson County | 1,583 | 100.0% | 7.1% | 60.5% | West River Telecommunications Cooperative (74%) |
| Jackson County | 1,562 | 100.0% | 14.5% | 70.5% | Golden West Telecommunications (100%) |
| Haakon County | 1,551 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 98.5% | Golden West Telecommunications (100%) |
| Sully County | 1,367 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | Venture Communications Cooperative Inc (100%) |
| Hyde County | 903 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | Venture Communications Cooperative Inc (100%) |
| Jones County | 815 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 98.1% | Golden West Telecommunications (100%) |
| Mellette County | 1,008 | 99.8% | 24.3% | 64.1% | Golden West Telecommunications (100%) |
| Sanborn County | 1,530 | 99.7% | 0.1% | 99.7% | Santel (99%) |
| Gregory County | 3,010 | 99.5% | 0.2% | 97.2% | Golden West Telecommunications (99%) |
| Dewey County | 2,381 | 99.5% | 1.1% | 2.0% | CRST Telephone Authority (97%) |
| Campbell County | 1,395 | 99.3% | 0.0% | 99.9% | Valley Telecommunications (99%) |
| Deuel County | 2,738 | 99.2% | 0.0% | 99.6% | ITC (99%) |
| Marshall County | 2,811 | 99.1% | 0.0% | 99.8% | Venture Communications Cooperative Inc (85%) |
| McPherson County | 1,774 | 99.0% | 0.0% | 99.9% | Valley Telecommunications (96%) |
| Perkins County | 2,094 | 98.9% | 0.0% | 19.5% | West River Cooperative Telephone Company (80%) |
| Jerauld County | 1,211 | 98.8% | 0.0% | 99.9% | Venture Communications Cooperative Inc (72%) |
| Charles Mix County | 4,930 | 98.7% | 20.8% | 73.2% | Fort Randall Telephone Company (55%) |
| Todd County | 2,706 | 98.5% | 62.3% | 19.1% | Golden West Telecommunications (94%) |
| Oglala Lakota County | 3,944 | 97.8% | 29.1% | 57.0% | Golden West Telecommunications (95%) |
| Aurora County | 1,797 | 97.7% | 0.0% | 99.1% | Midstate Communications (57%) |
| Buffalo County | 763 | 97.6% | 0.0% | 98.9% | Midstate Communications (100%) |
| Miner County | 1,630 | 96.9% | 0.2% | 97.4% | Alliance Communications Cooperative Inc (75%) |
| Bennett County | 1,495 | 96.9% | 8.2% | 82.9% | Golden West Telecommunications (98%) |
| Douglas County | 1,860 | 96.7% | 0.1% | 99.4% | Golden West Telecommunications (71%) |
| Harding County | 895 | 95.9% | 0.0% | 26.5% | West River Cooperative Telephone Company (74%) |
| McCook County | 3,116 | 92.7% | 0.2% | 97.0% | Golden West Telecommunications (57%) |
| Ziebach County | 1,137 | 91.3% | 0.0% | 6.8% | CRST Telephone Authority (94%) |
| Faulk County | 1,340 | 91.2% | 0.2% | 97.7% | Venture Communications Cooperative Inc (85%) |
| Bon Homme County | 3,539 | 90.7% | 11.3% | 85.2% | Golden West Telecommunications (60%) |
| Custer County | 5,870 | 89.8% | 0.1% | 96.8% | Golden West Telecommunications (73%) |
| Hanson County | 1,688 | 88.2% | 0.8% | 95.5% | TrioTel Communications Inc (83%) |
| Lyman County | 2,378 | 85.7% | 0.0% | 99.1% | Golden West Telecommunications (46%) |
| Roberts County | 5,709 | 83.6% | 0.3% | 99.7% | RCTech (48%) |
| Hutchinson County | 4,263 | 68.7% | 0.0% | 99.0% | Santel (51%) |
| Hand County | 2,124 | 63.9% | 13.8% | 96.0% | Venture Communications Cooperative Inc (80%) |
| Hamlin County | 3,476 | 58.7% | 0.1% | 99.1% | ITC (100%) |
| Brule County | 2,860 | 57.4% | 0.0% | 98.9% | Midstate Communications (100%) |
| Day County | 3,934 | 52.5% | 0.1% | 98.3% | ITC (61%) |
| Spink County | 3,953 | 51.5% | 5.0% | 87.6% | James Valley Cooperative Telephone Company (86%) |
| Turner County | 4,701 | 47.7% | 18.3% | 68.0% | Bluepeak (73%) |
| Grant County | 3,810 | 41.2% | 6.7% | 91.0% | ITC (88%) |
| Edmunds County | 2,523 | 37.1% | 0.6% | 87.9% | Midco (60%) |
| Butte County | 4,957 | 35.7% | 36.2% | 27.5% | Quantum Fiber (68%) |
| Lake County | 6,204 | 34.2% | 23.7% | 62.7% | Midco (62%) |
| Walworth County | 3,501 | 32.1% | 0.0% | 100.0% | Midco (67%) |
| Moody County | 3,441 | 29.9% | 2.1% | 91.9% | Valley Telecommunications (76%) |
| Kingsbury County | 3,723 | 25.7% | 1.4% | 94.9% | Valley Telecommunications (92%) |
| Beadle County | 8,440 | 23.6% | 65.0% | 28.4% | Quantum Fiber (73%) |
| Meade County | 11,987 | 21.4% | 31.0% | 45.6% | Midco (78%) |
| Lawrence County | 13,756 | 20.0% | 34.0% | 60.5% | Quantum Fiber (86%) |
| Union County | 7,197 | 17.3% | 10.6% | 63.8% | Long Lines Metro, LLC (54%) |
| Brookings County | 12,667 | 16.9% | 0.2% | 88.1% | Mediacom (77%) |
| Brown County | 16,268 | 16.2% | 6.7% | 90.6% | James Valley Cooperative Telephone Company (95%) |
| Yankton County | 9,978 | 15.8% | 37.3% | 32.3% | Midco (82%) |
| Stanley County | 1,823 | 15.7% | 44.5% | 96.5% | Quantum Fiber (79%) |
| Clay County | 5,208 | 15.6% | 8.3% | 90.0% | Bluepeak (80%) |
| Hughes County | 7,312 | 14.3% | 62.9% | 98.2% | Quantum Fiber (86%) |
| Minnehaha County | 68,926 | 13.0% | 16.6% | 91.5% | Midco (89%) |
| Pennington County | 41,897 | 11.9% | 27.8% | 56.9% | Quantum Fiber (90%) |
| Davison County | 8,919 | 11.8% | 0.8% | 96.4% | Quantum Fiber (86%) |
| Codington County | 12,904 | 10.7% | 34.1% | 48.8% | Quantum Fiber (85%) |
| Lincoln County | 25,155 | 4.6% | 20.4% | 80.5% | Midco (89%) |
The column adds up. These 66 rows sum to 391,050 residential locations, and to 35.8% and 17.5%, which are the figures we publish for South Dakota on the national study. The county rows and the state row are computed from the same blocks with the same definitions, so they cannot disagree. The build refuses to ship this page if they ever do.
Method, and what these numbers cannot tell you
Source: the FCC Broadband Data Collection, filing period D25, published July 21, 2026, reflecting service as of . Competition figures are computed across every census block in South Dakota: a location counts toward the first figure when at most one company reports wireline service, meaning fiber, cable or copper, in its block. Fixed wireless and satellite are excluded from that count and stated separately elsewhere on this site.
It is a floor, not an estimate. Coverage is self reported by providers and is known to overstate, so every overstatement moves a location out of the at-most-one group and never into it. The real figure is this one or worse.
Reporting service in a block is not the same as being able to connect a given house. A company that reaches one address on a street counts for the whole block, which is why the fiber gap column can look better than any resident's experience.
The last column is reach, not market share. It names the wired operator reporting service across the largest share of the county's locations, with that share in brackets. It says nothing about how many people buy from them.
License
This page and its table are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Republish it, adapt it, use it commercially, in a newspaper or on a government page, provided you credit WhereFiber and link to this page. The underlying counts are facts from a public federal dataset and nobody can own them; the license covers this write-up and the arrangement of this table.
How to cite this
Horvath, F. (2026). Internet competition in every South Dakota county: wireline provider counts by census block. WhereFiber. Retrieved from https://wherefiber.com/research/south-dakota-counties/
Want this for another state, or a cut we have not published? Write to contact@wherefiber.com and we will run it.
Related
- The national block level competition study, all 52 states and territories ranked
- Who can actually get gigabit internet in America, where South Dakota ranks near the top
- Every provider reporting service in South Dakota