FCC Should Revive Small ISPs for Rural Business, SBA Economist Says
The FCC should use regulation to help revive the level of competition that existed when niche ISPs flourished in the 1990s, Small Business Administration economist Radwan Saade said at the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors conference Tuesday. Saade, who works in the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, is finishing a Congressionally mandated study of small business’ broadband needs. It’s due in mid-October.
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"What the early findings of the study are saying is that small businesses in rural areas are still having a hard time,” Saade said. “The one thing they complain about is, they don’t have options,” he said. “They're stuck where they are. And this is the service that they have and they're not happy with that service."
The FCC is now taking comments on small business’s broadband use and Saade urged members of the audience to get involved. “It is critical to various areas of business to be vocal about what they want to do and what the next step in broadband is,” he said. The ISPs that blossomed after the passage of the 1996 Telecom Act “had the most amazing ingenuity” and were able to offer small businesses the services they needed because of the intense competition among ISPs, he said. Saade said he hoped the competition could be revived.
FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett reiterated some of the commission’s efforts in the National Broadband Plan, saying about two-thirds of those Americans without access to “modern” broadband lived in rural areas served by big telco carriers. The plan sets a broadband speed goal of 4 Mbps, but that’s merely an “in-home” standard and not necessarily the goal for small businesses, she said. “That’s not our intent.” Her comments came in response to a series of questions from audience members worried that other countries, particularly China and Japan, were already offering their citizens up to 1 Gbps.