Survey: Small businesses lack broadband options

More than three-quarters of U.S. small businesses in rural areas don't have access to cable-modem or DSL  broadband Internet services, according to a survey released Tuesday by satellite broadband provider Hughes Network Systems.

Another 44 percent of suburban small businesses don't have so-called terrestrial broadband services available, according to the survey conducted online by Survey.com. Sixty percent of all U.S. businesses with 10 employees or fewer said they didn't have access to cable or DSL. The survey covered 250 businesses with 100 employees or fewer.

Thirty-five percent of urban small businesses surveyed said they do not have access to terrestrial broadband.

The study shows the need for more education about the benefits of broadband and about alternatives to fixed-line broadband services, said speakers at a Washington, D.C., rural broadband forum, sponsored by Hughes Network Systems, based in Germantown, Maryland.

The Hughes survey would seem to contradict statistics from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which said in July that 95 percent of U.S. zip codes have access to at least one broadband provider. But critics of the FCC statistics say broadband services may not cover all areas of a single zip code, and satellite providers may also be the lone provider in some of those zip codes, added Michael Cook, senior vice president at Hughes Network Systems.

Many small business owners don't know about the availability of satellite broadband, and some may not see the benefits of paying for broadband, Cook said. "What if you're in business, and you want to download a parts catalog, because you're fixing someone's car?" he said. "Then you try to download a parts catalog on a dial-up modem."

Broadband services are particularly important to rural areas that may not have the education or health-care facilities that urban centers do, added John Branscome, acting legal advisor for wireless, technology and international issues at the FCC.

"[Broadband] has the power to make geographic isolation irrelevant," said Branscome. "It allows students at small villages in Alaska to have the same resources that children here in the best schools in Washington receive."

Curtis Anderson, acting administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Services, compared broadband to the railroads of the 19th century or interstate highways of the late 20th century. Towns with no railroad access, or later, nearby interstate highway access tended to lose population, and rural communities without broadband access will face the same fate, Anderson said. Rural Utility Services has provided $3.3 billion in telecommunications-related loans since 2001 to companies operating in rural areas.

While Cook promoted satellite broadband, Anderson talked about using multiple technologies to bring broadband to rural communities. "I think you're going to see a hybrid, a mixture of technologies," he said.

Cook and Alan Shark, managing director of the advocacy group Rural Broadband Coalition, both discounted the possibility of WiMax wireless technology serving many rural areas, however. In remote areas where small towns are many miles apart, WiMax may not make sense, Shark said.

But Shark said his group supports city-operated broadband networks, even though large DSL providers have raised questions about government tax dollars being spent to compete with private businesses. DSL provider Verizon Communications Inc. has also questioned if cities should spend money maintaining and updating broadband networks.

But in many rural areas, the costs of rolling out traditional DSL or cable may not appeal to large providers, speakers said.

"We have a nice mission, that is, leave no town behind," Shark said. "We are for any effort that would increase broadband availability. There is no one technology that fits every situation perfectly."