Here are a few interesting blogs and online articles published this week that relate to Rural Small Business, ending February 21, 2009:
President Obama signed the stimulus package this week, with much discussion on the funds allocated for rural America in installing rural broadband.
In Stimulus Stirs Debate Over Rural Broadband Access, you can get caught up on comments made this week by former FCC economist Michael Katz on National Public Radio (NPR), and the outrage that followed.
Katz feels that the $7.2 billion allocated to expand rural broadband could be put to better use, saying that rural parts of America are environmentally hostile, energy inefficient and even weak in innovation.
“The notion that we should be helping people who live in rural areas avoid the costs that they impose on society … is misguided,” Katz went on, “from an efficiency point of view and an equity one.”
In more hopeful news, two corporations announced their plans to provide broadband to rural America: IBM and Frontier Communications, America’s second largest rural telecommunications provider.
I.B.M. is working with rural electric cooperatives in Alabama to offer high-speed Internet service, delivered over power lines. Technology to send broadband over power lines has been around for several years, but it typically hasn’t been able to offer enough capacity at a low enough price to beat service from cable and phone companies.
Frontier Communications chairman and CEO Maggie Wilderotter says there is a growing demand for advanced services in rural America, and that providing quality broadband internet service is the key to shoring up a rapidly evolving rural economy. Frontier already provides telephone, television, broadband and wireless services to some 2.4 million customers, and is for many the only option for those services.
Wilderotter explained that rather than farming, most rural Americans own or work for small businesses. And those small businesses “deserve better” than what many telecommunications companies have offered them, Wilderotter said. Rural customers don’t want broadband service just for watching videos, she explained, but instead need it “for commerce and education – and creating and finding jobs.”
Rural consumers are just as eager for to make full use of broadband once they get a taste of its capabilities, she said.
And to once again encourage us to look on the bright side of life, take a look at Five Silver Linings (That’s Right) of the Recession in this week’s US News and World Report.
The five ‘rays of sunshine’ they identify to show us the economy isn’t as gloomy as many people think:
1. Recessions are good for start ups
2. Borrowing Costs are lower
3. There’s a Bigger Market for Outsourced Duties
4. Some industries grow in a recession
and lastly –
5. At least you’re in America!
