Broadband adoption by SMES

Abstract

Because the benefits of broadband for businesses have been widely publicized, the UK government has tried to ensure that there is a wide and fast take-up of the technology. Initial figures showed that broadband adoption by SMEs was particularly slow and there has been little research on the use of broadband by businesses, particularly SMEs. An in-depth study into the roles and activities of the groups involved in broadband diffusion to SMEs was conducted. The innovation diffusion and social construction of technology theory were applied to develop a framework that addresses some of the issues not covered in previous literature. The research was carried out in two phases and the empirical data from these was obtained and analysed using a qualitative and interpretive approach. Whilst broadband adoption figures have picked up more recently the research results show that SMEs have not adopted broadband in its full capacity. The results show that factors including cost, quality of service, and lack of awareness might be a reason for this. Implications for policy makers and groups involved in broadband diffusion to SMEs have therefore been provided. The first phase of the research provides results that indicated that broadband has not necessarily changed the way the Internet is used by the SMEs. In the second phase, the results showed a wide if not incompatible difference among groups involved in the issues surrounding broadband diffusion to SMEs. Although the governi-nenht as provided funds for SMEs' adoption of information technology, the level of awareness displayed by SMEs is persistently low. A case is put that this may be because SMEs are unique as are their needs and so need to be targeted as individual businesses with individual needs as opposed to a 'one size fits all' solution.