Horses & Broadband on my Mind

Today I'm in Winona, Minnesota at the Minnesota Equestrian Center watching my daughter compete at a regional horse show. If you've ever been to a large regional or national horse show, you truly know the meaning of the phrase "hurray up and wait!" We started the day at 5:30am and it is now around 4:30pm and we're still waiting for the first riding class. I'm figuring that the riding classes might be completed around midnight - but we're used to it. So I bring the laptop and a broadband card and spend much of the day working and writing in the trailer.

I've mentioned in an earlier post that I serve on the Governor's Broadband Task Force, which is good as broadband has been a longstanding research interest of mine. And coincidentally, I've just completed a study of 689 businesses throughout rural Minnesota, examining their adoption and utilization of the Internet in their business. So I'm sitting in the trailer writing up the findings and getting it ready for publication and release in a few weeks. I will release the final report through the EDA Center website at www.umcedacenter.org

But until then, let me give you a short sneak preview of a couple of the more salient findings:

• 89.7% of rural businesses are now online. This compares to 65.5% in 2004.
• 96% of rural businesses online connect with a broadband connection. Again, this compares to 61% back in 2004.
• The median price paid for a broadband connection was $50; not much more than a residential connection. That's likely because the majority of rural businesses are very small businesses with fewer than 10 employees.
• And as a result 71% of businesses characterized the price they pay for broadband as "very affordable" or "priced about right."
• 85% of businesses reported that their current Internet connection speed is adequate for their business needs; however, only 37% had confidence that their current connection speed would meet their needs 24 months from now.

Well ... that's enough for now, as I can't spill all the beans. But needless to say that I believe that this new study provides an interesting update and tells an informative story of how rural businesses continue to utilize and integrate the Internet into their business strategy.

Better get back to the horses ...