In many ways, small business growth is dependent on access to high-speed Internet, especially in rural areas.  In a recent edition of Inc’s Small Business Success Newsletter, Josh Spiro writes:

From e-commerce and video conferencing to multimedia, businesses depend heavily on fast broadband connections to run their day-to-day operations.  But many areas of the country, particularly rural and remote locations, still have insufficient speeds for these kinds of bandwidth-hogging transactions.

While government cost estimates to standardize high-speed Internet rates across the country remain high – anywhere between $20 billion to $350 billion, according to the article - there continues to be significant private investments being made to expand the network.   These investments are critical for job creation and economic growth.

Start-ups have a vested interest in getting the more rural areas of the country fully wired because areas away from urban centers are the cheapest places to start a business.  “If you’re a start-up, why would you incur the gigantic capital cost of renting space in a city,” says Elliot Gold, president and teleconferencing analyst at TeleSpan Publishing, an Altadena, California-based publishing and consulting company, “when your customers are anywhere at the end of a wire.”

Policies regulating the Internet should be written in a way that promotes 100 percent broadband penetration, so people across the United States have equal Internet access and greater educational and employment opportunities.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.