A recent cover story by CRN interviewed small IT related businesses regarding President Obama’s 2009/2010 legislative activity/wins and the impact on their business. While I am sure the story was not attempting to accurately poll IT related SMBs, it was clear that most of those interviewed were not optimistic about the newly passed laws. The most discussed law was the Healthcare bill. Most of the SMBs see additional cost, potential taxes and very little improvement in the health insurance plans they provide for their employees. Moreover, there is the concern that too much effort went into the healthcare battle and not enough attention was paid to assisting the nation’s small entrepreneurs in recovering from lost revenues due to the recession. Prior to the recession there were over 250,000 IT related small businesses. Today, that number hovers around 200,000, a tremendous loss in talent and jobs for the technology industry.

I debated having this as the subject of the blog until I read this morning the FCC has been advised by so-called experts that SMBs need more competitive pricing for broadband access and services to meet the demands of a changing sales environment. Most of the anecdotal stories given during a hearing chaired by Senator Mary Landrieu revolved around the difficulties faced by businesses in rural areas. However, as you now know from last week’s blogs, most of the broadband issues that need to be addressed are outside of rural areas. In fact, I appreciated the beginning of a statement given by Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service, noting, “approximately 181 applications requesting $2.9 billion from Agriculture’s Broadband Initiatives Program came from small businesses…” That was the economically important element of his statement. The rest was more political involving minority owned firms, Indian tribes and native Alaskan and native Hawaiian entities.

Additionally, I was not surprised to learn businesses with 25 or fewer employees pay two times more per employee for broadband than those with more than 25 employees. Most of the price differential is based upon the way broadband is sold, the bigger the pipe, the lower the cost per megabit. It may not be fair, but it is reality.

My key concern about the CRN article and the FCC discussion about broadband pricing is how does the Obama administration or FCC plan to address the concerns of SMBs? We do not need additional government meddling with regard to pricing and competition, and Broadvox and other ITSPs are leery of any more changes to regulating VoIP/SIP Trunking providers. At some point, continued changes will cause an inverse reaction by service providers in the marketplace. Even now, there is some marketplace overhang in place as we wait for the FCC to determine if VoIP should be subject to similar rules accorded TDM.

So, has the Obama Administration been good for SMBs? No, but we do have two plus years to go.

See you on Friday…

The IP Community Needs a Little Privacy

Perhaps, I have written about this before but after discovering the FCC broadband test site, I needed to blog on this again. Historically, we have always known that sending information over the Internet meant giving up privacy. We send personal and business information to unknown servers all of the time. We allow unknown sites to deposit cookies on our computers with our permission. And in the case of Google Voice, some of us, not me, agree to allow for all of our conversations to be stored, analyzed and used later for marketing purposes. Finally, we are not outraged when this type of information is shared with the government without the appropriate legal steps taken.

As our personal and professional information moves throughout the ether, why aren't we concerned? Whenever I raise the issue of Google Voice in the office, I am looked at with askance. Is it so unbelievable that I want to use a service and maintain my privacy?

Today, I discovered a new website set up by the federal government to allow consumers to test the speed and quality of their broadband. The site, www.broadband.gov, is useful. Just about any such test site has a valid purpose. However, in accessing the test engine, there is the requirement to put in how you are accessing the Internet (home, business, mobile, etc.) and your physical address. I understand why the government may want to know how we are accessing the Internet. I even understand that FCC funding may be tied to locations accessing the Internet. But a specific address is not required for this type of research. A zip code should suffice.

With outrage quieted, I decided to check and see if the actual company performing the test required any of this information. The FCC sponsored site uses Ookla as the source for the engine. If you choose to go to their website, no information is collected and the results are the same.

Broadvox informs its prospects and customers to test their broadband connectivity to confirm that it is sufficient to support a SIP Trunk all of the time. I may add Ookla as a source but the government's site will not pass this blog again.

Demand some privacy and have great weekend!