The availability, speed, and price of broadband services vary significantly between metro-area and rural small businesses, according to a Congressionally mandated report published by the Office of Advocacy in November.
The study, entitled The Impact of Broadband Speed and Price on Small Business, was written by Columbia Telecommunications Corporation, a small business located in Kensington, Maryland, under contract with Advocacy. The authors find significant disparities between the Internet services available to rural and metro-area small businesses. Specifically, when price is held constant, rural small businesses get less service compared with metro-area small businesses. When services are held constant, rural small businesses pay higher prices.
Congress directed Advocacy to conduct the study in section 105 of the Broadband Data Improvement Act of 2008. The study included a national survey of the price and speed of Internet services available to small businesses. The report captures the current conditions prevailing in the Internet services marketplace against the backdrop of technological, industry, and regulatory change of recent decades.
The survey revealed many aspects of businesses' Internet usage, high-tech attitudes, and needs:
· Small businesses want both competition and choice in Internet service. They see competition as key to innovation, customer service, and lower prices. The survey data demonstrate that the small business Internet market, in most cases, fails to provide this competition or choice to small businesses from a performance or price perspective.
· Approximately one-third of small businesses surveyed indicate a need for broadband service requiring greater capacity networks than currently exist in many locations in the United States.
· The authors' analysis of the broadband market found that very little, if any, competition exists. Small business consumers' choice in a given geographical area is limited to very few broadband providers, and in most cases just two: the incumbent phone company and the cable company.
The report also contains policy recommendations for expanding access to broadband services. It is available here.

Last month I attended the National SBIR/STTR Conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma with the goal of learning about updates to the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. This three day conference focused on providing training sessions for entrepreneurs, business leaders and non-government professionals from the novice to the seasoned SBIR warrior.Read More