To the small business owner, particularly for first time entrepreneurs, the potential for wireless technologies to amplify and improve one's business cannot be understated. Best of all, in an age where wireless services and devices are beginning to rule the day, entrepreneurship can finally become color blind.
As barriers to entry come crashing down, and defining one's niche and accessing the ideal audience gets easier with the click of a few keys on a laptop or smart phone, entrepreneurs have a brand new opportunity to play on a more leveled playing field than ever before.
Historically, lack of access to capital and the necessary resources to produce, promote and scale one's ideas have often proven insurmountable hurdles for people of color in starting their own business. What's more, these deficiencies often make it harder to sustain a thriving business. Although wireless technologies do not totally overcome these factors, they can be leveraged to maximize output, efficiency and reach at a fraction of the cost and time. As any entrepreneur will tell you, maximizing yield while decreasing resource expenditures is key to creating a successful business.
The importance of wireless technologies became a national priority earlier this year when President Obama talked about the need to deploy next-generation 4G wireless networks to 98% of the nation during his 2011 State of the Union Address. Likewise, the Federal Communication Commission has become acutely attuned to the need for additional greater spectrum in order to sustain wireless growth and demand..
Because of the increasing importance of wireless accessibility and the need to improve the more efficient allocation and use of spectrum, the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile represents a very important measure for the future of wireless-enabled entrepreneurship, especially for people of color. Regardless of the companies involved in this deal, the end result holds a greater promise for consumers and businesses alike, particularly for those individuals who stand to lose access to a 4G LTE network if this doesn't come to fruition.
While supporters and opponents of the merger may differ in their beliefs about the impact the merger may have on consumers, a few facts remain clear with regard to the effects this intended union could have on entrepreneurship efforts and small business ventures. The improvements in accessibility for over 97% percent of the country to a high-speed 4G LTE network will unlock opportunities and allow for new business models otherwise inaccessible, in turn leveling the playing field.
With the realities of time, place and resources altered by the benefits of access to reliable, high-speed wireless networks, entrepreneurs who may have been traditionally disadvantaged and unable to bring their ideas to market, could soon fully experience the richness of developing in an ecosystem conducive to their growth and overall success. I continue to ask the question. What other solutions are people presenting to solve this problem? I don't see any.
In the wireless age, the merit of an idea and the strategic implementation of a business plan can take precedence over the ethnic and socio-economic situation one happens to be born into. The traditional barriers to entry are no longer the same as they used to be five, ten or even fifteen years ago. And even as access to capital and resources remain very real concerns for minority entrepreneurs, the reality is that leveraging wireless technologies can help people transcend the difficulties they may have otherwise encountered.
In the wireless age, we should be able to have a level playing field in which an idea- an entrepreneur- will be judged by the content of its concept rather than by the color of its maker. So we need to make everyone has equal access and the opportunity to do so.