No Business is an Island - Always-on Internet for Small-office/Home-office Benton AR

Posted by : Linda Dailey Paulson

Whether you run your own business or work from home part of the time, 56K just won't cut it. The good news is that depending on your area or provider network, broadband options can enable better work-from-home arrangements and speedier home-business connections. The bad news is that easy, one-size-fits-all solutions for always-on broadband Internet services are relatively rare.

Currently, there are an estimated 110 million Internet users in the United States. And consumer interest in broadband access is growing. The Yankee Group estimates there will be 7 million DSL users by 2004. As a result, home networking will grow from 650,000 homes to more than 10 million homes by 2003.

Both access and equipment vendors are scrambling to keep up with the booming demand for broadband. Many of the new products and services, however, have been developed in the absence of an overarching standards body. This had the predictable effect of fragmenting the technology into several incompatible products.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also scrambled to keep up with a rapidly shifting market. Its credo has been to encourage as much competition between providers as the 1996 Telecommunications Act and the power of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (ROBCs) will allow. This has led to further service fragmentation and a fair amount of competitive leveraging on the part of the ROBCs.

Take Bell Atlantic, for example. A user who ...

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