Earlier this month, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and former Chair Senator John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the Small Business Broadband and Emerging Information Technology Enhancement Act (S. 3506). This legislation codifies several of the recommendations made by the FCC in its report to Congress earlier this year, in which it made recommendations that are supposed to get us to 100% broadband access. The bill only has the one co-sponsor at the moment, which is not surprising given that it was just introduced. It was referred to the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship for markup, leading one to suspect that Chairwoman Landrieu may take advantage of the opportunity to hold another hearing on small business access to information technology and, specifically, to broadband.

The bill would create a Broadband and Emerging Technology Coordinator within the SBA, add assisting with access to technology to the missions of the Small Business Development Center and the Women’s Business Center programs, add upgrades of broadband technology to eligible uses under the 504, 7(a) and Microloan programs, create a “Rural Small Business Technology Pilot Program” that would permit rural small firms to purchase used computers from the government, and instruct the SBA to figure out how deployment of technology in their District Offices can help with the development of broadband and wireless technologies for local small businesses. This seems a bit heavy on the bureaucratic chair-shuffling. For microbusinesses, purchasing used government computers at low, low prices, and tech training from the entrepreneurial development programs will probably be the most helpful provisions here.