U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

30–631 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

S. HRG. 115–301 

NET NEUTRALITY: IMPACTS ON NEW HAMPSHIRE 

SMALL BUSINESSES 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 3, 2018 

Printed for the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov 

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COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho, Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, Ranking Member 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SKIFFINGTON E. HOLDERNESS, Republican Staff Director 

SEAN MOORE, Democratic Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS

Page 

Shaheen, Hon. Jeanne, Ranking Member, and a U.S. Senator from New 

Hampshire ............................................................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES

Shoer, MJ, Director, Client Engagement and vCIO, Onepath, Bedford, NH ..... 7 

Zakon, Robert, Chief Technology Officer, Zakon Group, LLC, North Conway, 

NH ......................................................................................................................... 12 

Pearson, Nancy, Director, New Hampshire Center for Women and Enterprise, 

Nashua, NH .......................................................................................................... 16 

Luse, Zach, Founder and CEO, Paragon Digital Marketing, Keene, NH ........... 19 

Drake, Lisa, Director of Sustainability Innovation, Stonyfield Farm, Inc., 

Londonderry, NH ................................................................................................. 23 

Cyr, Joshua, Director of Acceleration and Education, Alpha Loft, Portsmouth, 

NH ......................................................................................................................... 26 

ALPHABETICAL LISTING

Cyr, Joshua 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 26 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28 

Drake, Lisa 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 23 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 24 

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation 

Article dated May 2018 .................................................................................... 44 

Internet Service Providers 

Letter dated May 9, 2018 ................................................................................. 64 

Luse, Zach 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 19 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

Pearson, Nancy 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 17 

Risch, Hon. James E. 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 4 

Shaheen, Hon. Jeanne 

Opening statement ........................................................................................... 1 

Shoer, MJ 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 

Zakon, Robert 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14 

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NET NEUTRALITY: IMPACTS ON NEW 

HAMPSHIRE SMALL BUSINESSES 

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018 

UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS

AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, Durham, NH. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in Room 

158, Memorial Union Building, University of New Hampshire, Hon. 

Jeanne Shaheen presiding. 

Present: Senator Shaheen. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEANNE SHAHEEN, RANKING 

MEMBER, AND A U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Senator SHAHEEN. Good morning. I’m actually going to sit down 

in just a minute because we have an official format we have to follow, because this is an official field hearing of the Small Business 

and Entrepreneurship Committee. So we will be following the 

guidelines that we have as a field hearing. But I want to first welcome everyone, and you should feel free to move up if you would 

like, if you have trouble hearing. 

I wanted to thank the University of New Hampshire for hosting 

us this morning. We have Stan Waddel, who is UNH’s Chief Information Officer who is here, and he will say a few words because 

he is also very interested in these issues. 

So, Stan, before we officially open, I’m going to ask you to say 

a few words. 

Mr. WADDEL. Certainly. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

First, I would like to offer each of you a warm welcome to the 

University of New Hampshire. The University of New Hampshire 

is the State’s flagship research and education institution, home to 

13,000 undergraduate students and 2,500 graduate and professional students, and an estimated $1.5 billion economic impact on 

the State of New Hampshire. 

As a technology professional in higher education, I can tell you 

that colleges and universities are watching this issue with great 

concern. We have concerns around whether or not the impacts will 

increase our cost of delivering content for students in the education 

of students. We have concerns whether or not it will impact the 

cost of our research endeavors and just in general have an impact 

on the ability to have a free exchange of ideas and information on 

the internet. 

So we are watching these developments with concern, and I’m 

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ter. Given that, I’d like to welcome the panel and Senator Jeanne 

Shaheen. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Mr. WADDEL. And I’ll be brief and just say welcome and good 

morning. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Stan. 

As you can tell, Stan is not from New Hampshire, but we’re delighted that he’s here, and he said he’s actually made it through 

three winters now. 

Mr. WADDEL. I have. 

Senator SHAHEEN. So he’s here to stay. 

Thank you very much, Stan. 

At this time I would like to officially open the Small Business 

Committee’s field hearing in Durham to explore the impact of net 

neutrality on New Hampshire’s small businesses. 

Now, before we turn to our witnesses, I’m going to introduce a 

few of the people in the audience today. 

First of all, we have New Hampshire’s head of the Small Business Administration, District Director Greta Johansson. Greta, 

very nice of you to join us today. Thank you. 

We also have the—I don’t know if we have Warren Daniel here? 

Yes. Warren, thank you. Nice to have Warren here. 

And do we have Jason Cannon, the Acting Director from the 

Small Business Development Centers? No. 

So, thank you all very much. It’s really important to have representatives from the SBA here to listen to the testimony about the 

impact on our small businesses. 

Is Carol Miller here? She is the Broadband—there you are, 

Carol. Thank you. She’s the Broadband Specialist at the New 

Hampshire Bureau of Economic Affairs. 

And Liz Gray from Live Free and Start. Nice to see you, Liz. 

Thank you for being here. 

Let me also finally recognize Mike Shultz, who is the Vice President for Regulatory and Public Policy, and Ellen Scarponi, Senior 

Director of Government Affairs at Consolidated Communications. 

Thank you both for being here, as well. 

I also want to introduce the staff of the Small Business Committee who are here. Despite what you may have heard about divisions in Congress in Washington, at the Small Business Committee 

we actually work very well together on both sides of the aisle to 

promote the interests of small business. So we are delighted to 

have staff from both the majority and the minority represented 

here today. We are very glad to welcome Skiffington Holderness, 

who is the Majority Staff Director for the committee. He was sent 

by Senator Jim Risch, who is the Chairman of the committee from 

Idaho. Again, we’re delighted to have you here. We’re hoping that 

he will stay and spend some money while he’s here. 

[Laughter.] 

We’re also joined by Becky McNaught, who is the Counsel on the 

minority staff for Senator Cardin, who is from Maryland and is the 

Ranking Member. I have a note here that says this is the first time 

for both of you to be in New Hampshire, so we hope you will stay 

and enjoy yourselves a little bit. 

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And finally let me introduce the Clerk of the Small Business 

Committee, Kathryn Eden, who is here to make sure that all of the 

notes from today’s hearing are properly recorded. 

Again, I want to thank Chairman Risch and Ranking Member 

Cardin not only for sending their staff but also for their cooperation 

in today’s hearing. 

I have a statement from Chairman Risch that I will enter into 

the record, and it’s very helpful to have his support for this hearing. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Risch follows:] 

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Now, today’s format will be a roundtable discussion that features 

our panelists, and because this is an official hearing of the Small 

Business Committee, we will not be able to take questions from the 

audience. I know a number of you here have been at other field 

hearings, so you know that we’re all here to listen. But the official 

record will remain open for another two weeks. Is that correct? So 

if anyone would like to submit written testimony, we will make 

sure that that gets entered into the record. 

So again, let me welcome all of you. Thank you very much for 

coming to the discussion this morning. This is an issue that I think 

is a key for so many of our small businesses. It’s also a key for consumers. But as we look at the 99 percent of employers in New 

Hampshire who are small businesses, this is really critical. Net 

neutrality and the importance of maintaining an open internet is 

very important as we think about innovation and creativity that’s 

going on with our small businesses. 

This week is also National Small Business Week. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of small businesses to our 

economy. As I know everybody here knows, about two-thirds of jobs 

that are created are created as the result of small businesses, so 

anything we can do to help them prosper is very important. 

Net neutrality, as I think everyone here knows and as our panelists will further describe, is the idea that broadband providers 

should not be able to block or slow down access to certain websites. 

Now, this is a principle that I think has been key to a free and 

open internet. It has created a marketplace that’s robust and a 

level playing field for ideas and commerce. 

Unfortunately, the protections that have ensured net neutrality 

are now at risk because of decisions by the Federal Communications Commission last year that voted along party lines to repeal 

net neutrality rules. As a result, unless Congress acts, these net 

neutrality protections will disappear later this year, and I think 

this is a decision that could really have major ramifications for consumers as well as for small businesses. 

In discussions that I’ve had throughout New Hampshire, small 

business owners have repeatedly expressed their concerns about 

what the impact of these changes would mean on their access to 

the internet. They’re concerned that broadband providers will create a pay-to-play system that would put them at a competitive disadvantage. Small businesses in rural communities are especially 

concerned. As most of you know, in New Hampshire we have parts 

of our State that don’t really have access to high-speed broadband, 

and we have other rural communities where they have access to 

only one provider. 

So it’s possible in the near future that the Senate will consider 

a bipartisan Congressional Review Act resolution to rescind the 

FCC’s order ending net neutrality, and just yesterday a coalition of 

small business owners across the country sent a letter to Congress 

asking that we protect them by overturning the FCC’s decision to 

repeal net neutrality, and that letter was signed by 6,000 small 

businesses across the country. 

So as Congress considers whether to let net neutrality go forward, today’s field hearing is an opportunity for us to hear from 

small businesses in New Hampshire, from those who work on this 

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issue in New Hampshire, about what’s at stake for them and the 

communities they serve, and I’m looking forward to your comments 

and the discussion today. I will take what I hear here and not only 

will we have it for the record but I will share it with my colleagues 

in Washington. 

So let me begin by introducing our panelists today. 

First we have MJ Shoer. He currently serves as Director, Client 

Engagement, at Onepath, which is a nationwide managed service 

provider with offices in New Hampshire and other states. 

Let me just point out that we have longer bios of all of the panelists here on the table in the back of the room, so please take those. 

You will be very impressed with the past work of all of our panelists. 

Next we have Robert Zakon. He is a technologist and entrepreneur who specializes in a wide range of subjects, including cyber 

security, enterprise architecture, cloud computing, and the internet. 

Nancy Pearson has more than 15 years of non-profit management experience, and she brings expertise in program development, 

delivery, and marketing at the Center for Women and Enterprise 

in New Hampshire, where she is the Director. Nancy, thank you 

for being here. 

Zach Luse founded Paragon Digital Marketing in 2012 and has 

more than 15 years of internet marketing experience, working with 

and consulting for organizations of all sizes. Zach, thank you for 

joining us. 

And Lisa Drake serves as the Director of Sustainability Innovation at Stonyfield, which is the leading organic yogurt manufacturer based in Londonderry, New Hampshire. 

And finally we have Josh Cyr. He’s a UNH alum, and he has a 

background in tech entrepreneurship and software development, 

and he runs Alpha Loft in Portsmouth, which is one of New Hampshire’s premiere startup accelerators. 

So we’re delighted to have all of you here. Thank you very much 

for taking time to join us this morning. We’re going to ask you to 

make opening statements of between 3 to 5 minutes, and then 

hopefully we will have time for further conversation. 

I’m going to ask MJ if you would start. 

STATEMENT OF MJ SHOER, DIRECTOR, CLIENT ENGAGEMENT 

& VCIO, ONEPATH, BEDFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Mr. SHOER. Thank you, Senator. My wife and I are alums, as is 

our oldest. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Oh, good. 

Mr. SHOER. My wife and I had our first date in this building 

many moons ago. 

[Laughter.] 

It’s a little surreal. 

Senator, thank you so much for holding this hearing. I think it’s 

very important to share our concerns with our legislators in a very 

direct way. 

As the Senator said, my name is MJ Shoer. I’m the Director of 

Client Engagement and vCIO for Onepath. We are a national company, but by way of local color we have clients from the Monadnock 

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region to the North Country and all across the Southern Tier, and 

very well concentrated here in the seacoast. 

For 20 years, I ran a small business MSP in Portsmouth, and 

then merged into a slightly larger company in Massachusetts, 

which is both what’s called a competitive local exchange carrier, a 

CLEC, and an ISP. So we’ve lived and breathed this for many 

years. In addition, all of our clients are directly affected by this. 

By way of a unique perspective, I also had the distinct pleasure 

of serving on the Board of Directors of CompTIA, which is the Computing Technology Industry Association, which is the global IT 

trade association. I currently serve as the immediate past chair, 

and over the last several years we’ve actually met with our office 

staff in D.C. when we’ve come into town annually to talk about 

technology issues. So I’ve got kind of an interesting take on all this. 

Perhaps most interestingly, back in 1995 I was a principal in the 

first dial-up internet service provider in Portsmouth, and in a matter of days—not months, not weeks, literally days—we had multiple competitors who had also opened up, and there was quite a 

bit of choice in Portsmouth at the time. 

Now, fast-forward 23 years and there’s almost no choice. In the 

City of Portsmouth, it’s really Comcast if you want high-speed 

internet access. Now, for the business community there is some 

choice, but for the consumer there really is not. So choice is a big 

piece of net neutrality as well. While the throttling and the controlling of content has been in the forefront, the concept of choice has 

been a big part of this equation. 

To put a little color on it—and not to pick on any of these companies but I’m big on word pictures—if there was a white board, I’d 

be doodling, which you’re very happy there’s not. But consider that 

Comcast owns NBC Universal, as an example, and further consider 

that Verizon is one of Comcast’s largest competitors. Now, at home 

on Comcast with my TV service, I can get to ABC’s network, CBS’ 

network, NBC’s network, whatever I want. But if I want to jump 

on the cut-the-cord bandwagon and only have internet access and 

use streaming services, Comcast is actually incented with the lack 

of net neutrality regulation to limit where I can go. All of a sudden, 

NBC will perform beautifully, but what about ABC or CBS? 

In higher education, with everything that’s going on with the 

internet and being able to offer virtual courses in conjunction with 

on-campus courses, similar issues could happen. If a wealthy university, say a Notre Dame or a USC, were to make a deal with providers to prioritize their courseware at the expense of more moderately sized universities like our own, our own UNH could be at 

a significant disadvantage in the field of higher education. And 

even though I’m biased, this is a pretty darn good school. We don’t 

want to see that happen. 

But more importantly is how it impacts small and mid-sized 

businesses in the State. It could be crippling without the regulations in place. I always like to say it’s like the difference between 

Route 95 and Route 1. With net neutrality in place, we’re all driving on 95 to get where we want to go. But if net neutrality is rolled 

back and I want to go stream a show on ABC across Comcast internet, I’m forced down Route 1, and I’m going to hit so many lights 

and so much traffic that I’m probably just not going to bother going 

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anymore, and I really do believe it’s that simple. That is the crux 

of the issue. 

But let me just quickly share a slightly broader perspective from 

the standpoint of CompTIA, which is that CompTIA’s membership 

spans the entire global IT industry. So it’s large providers, small 

providers, ISPs, edge providers, and CompTIA firmly believe that 

congressional bipartisan legislation is the only way to address this 

issue. Now, the CRA is a great first step. It will get what needs 

to get done. But I believe—this is my personal opinion, not 

CompTIA’s—I believe this is a tremendous bipartisan opportunity. 

You’re right, Senator, I think most of us out here in the real 

world don’t see anything but division and gridlock on this side of 

the aisle or that side of the aisle, and I know I, for one, would dearly love to see both sides of the aisle collaborate on anything, and 

this could be a great start. And who knows? Maybe it could be the 

tip of that snowball over the top of the mountain. 

But we definitely believe that permanent legislation is the way 

to go because, as it stands right now, many states have enacted executive orders, their own laws, and yet the FCC’s ruling preempts 

the states from doing anything to begin with. So there’s instant 

conflict going on with this. 

I think the summary of it is it’s a critically important issue. I 

hope you are very successful in rolling back the rollback. That’s a 

double negative, but I think everyone knows what I mean. And we 

do believe that if the CRA is successful, the foot should not come 

off the gas pedal to get that permanent legislation in place. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shoer follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thanks very much, MJ. 

Robert. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT ZAKON, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY 

OFFICER, ZAKON GROUP, LLC, NORTH CONWAY, NH 

Mr. ZAKON. Good morning. My name is Robert Zakon. I’m the 

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Zakon Group, LLC. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony here at this 

hearing today. 

Zakon Group is a technology consulting development firm founded in 2002 and based in a rural county of New Hampshire. We 

work with clients of all sizes in industry and government and the 

non-profit sector, both regionally and around the world. That is in 

large part possible because of the internet itself. The majority of 

our work involves the internet in some way, whether it’s the application services we develop, the content we host, or with the systems we work with. 

The founding policy of net neutrality could very well become outright impeded. Let me repeat that: It could be hindered or outright 

impeded. This is something that many people don’t think of when 

they’re talking about net neutrality. 

For example, the internet’s openness has allowed our company to 

develop an event management software application and provided as 

a service globally. With users’ attention span nowadays being fairly 

limited, and delays of even a few seconds resulting in loss of interest, had limitations been in place on how fast an end user could 

access the application it is unlikely our software, which has been 

used by events in over 100 countries, would have become as popular. As a fairly small company, we’re not in a position to negotiate 

enhanced network rights for ourselves and for clients given the potentially diverse providers involved. 

As it is, some restrictions placed on internet services outside the 

United States have resulted in the application being less than fully 

useful to a few of our international clients. 

Also, we currently have a single choice of reliable high-speed 

service. Again, I mentioned I’m in a rural county of New Hampshire. If our provider should start charging more for some of the 

services we offer or some of the services that we use from others, 

it would be immediately felt in our bottom line and leave us with 

limited alternatives. 

Beyond my own business, I volunteer as a mentor with Schoolwork, a non-profit association and resource partner of the Small 

Business Administration that helps businesses start-up and grow. 

In this capacity I have seen the benefits of unrestricted access to 

the internet by other small businesses, including those not in the 

technology sector such as a small retail shop setting up an internet 

storefront or manufacturers collaborating with clients and the like. 

Limiting the options available to these businesses will only serve 

to stifle their growth by causing them to not have or offer the best 

quality service possible. Even the uncertainty of what providers 

may do if net neutrality is not in place, as a client recently remarked to me, could be disruptive in the crucial business planning 

and funding stages. 

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Having completed a year of public service last spring as a White 

House Presidential Innovation Fellow, I had the unique privilege to 

see the many innovations brought about by small businesses that 

were also of direct benefit to the government at all levels. These 

innovations greatly benefited from and were often only possible by 

an internet with an equal point of view. 

In the past few years Federal departments such as those of Defense and Homeland Security have recognized the innovation potential of small companies and stepped up ways to find them and 

facilitate procurement of their services. Even the public sector derives advantages from net neutrality. 

I have watched and participated in the internet’s growth since 

the mid-1980s and for the past 25 years have authored an updated 

timeline that provides a comprehensive history of the internet. This 

work, which has been reprinted in thousands of books, magazines, 

and other mediums, tracks the many innovations that have been 

made thanks to an open internet. Had roadblocks been placed in 

this information superhighway and which is now so much more, 

many small businesses that have become global corporations, and 

I’m sure you can name them, would likely not have succeeded, and 

we would be limited to the few innovations allowed by the companies controlling the toll gates. 

It is the smaller businesses, however, that have brought many of 

the revolutionary innovations in the last couple of decades, and 

much of what you use today just would not be available otherwise. 

Net neutrality is imperative to the success of small businesses in 

this country as they continue to increasingly rely on the internet, 

and for the benefits derived literally by humankind from the innovations fostered by an open, transparent, and equal-access internet. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zakon follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thanks very much, Robert. 

Nancy. 

STATEMENT OF NANCY PEARSON, DIRECTOR, NEW HAMPSHIRE CENTER FOR WOMEN AND ENTERPRISE, NASHUA, NH 

Ms. PEARSON. Thank you so much for inviting me today on behalf of the Center for Women and Enterprise. We’re a small business resource in New Hampshire. We operate the Small Business 

Administration Women’s Business Center. We are the only statewide center dedicated to women entrepreneurs. 

One of the things that is of concern for us is that many of our 

clients are underserved in a number of ways, whether that be from 

a demographic or an economic or a geographical standpoint, and we 

provide services no matter where women are in their business 

cycle, whether they’re in the idea phase, launch, start, or growth. 

One place that is the great equalizer is and always has been the 

internet, and it allows women to operate on a level playing field 

where they normally can’t operate. So the potential concerns of the 

end of net neutrality raise a lot of questions for us, and they all 

revolve around that equalization issue, and I’m just going to touch 

upon a few bullet points here. 

If, for example, the large companies are able to block or slow content in terms of video streaming services from rival companies, and 

if they’re creating fast lanes and other things that we’ve read 

about, there’s just no way that small and micro businesses, which 

is the majority of what my clients are operating, there’s no way 

that they can compete. 

All internet traffic needs to be treated as equal so that small 

business has access to the same resources as the big companies, 

and this is especially important for startups. 

The end of net neutrality could affect businesses using online 

services that are currently free. So Skype or MailChimp or some 

of the online market research tools, if suddenly they have to charge 

for their services and they were otherwise free for small and micro 

businesses, that could have a significant effect on already thin profit margins for small business. 

And in New Hampshire especially, in rural New Hampshire, 

small businesses rely on the internet for sales and for search engine optimization because they’re just not getting the foot traffic 

that they would otherwise get. I would just like to put that in perspective because that affects Cheshire County, Sullivan County, 

Grafton County, Carroll County, Coos County. That is the majority 

of the counties in New Hampshire. 

So the bottom line for us is that New Hampshire small businesses and micro businesses rely on the equalizing force of the 

internet. Just to put that into perspective, women start businesses 

at five times the rate of any other entrepreneur, and for minority 

women and women veterans, that number is even higher. So when 

we start putting additional barriers in the way of these entrepreneurs, it can have a significant and, I think, disastrous effect 

on the amount of small businesses that are opening on a daily 

basis. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Pearson follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. Nancy, can you just define for us 

micro businesses? 

Ms. PEARSON. I sure can. So, it’s a little bit different depending 

on where you look for information, but in general we’re talking 

about businesses with fewer than five employees, with revenues 

under $400,000, in general, and generally businesses that require 

less than $35,000 in seed money to start up. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Zach. 

STATEMENT OF ZACH LUSE, FOUNDER & CEO, PARAGON 

DIGITAL MARKETING, KEENE, NH 

Mr. LUSE. Thank you, Senator. I’m Zach Luse, Founder and CEO 

of Paragon Digital Marketing. Thanks for allowing me to share my 

perspective regarding net neutrality as it relates to small businesses. I’m strongly opposed to—— 

Senator SHAHEEN. Excuse me, Zach. 

Can you all hear in the back? 

Maybe if you pull the microphone closer. 

Mr. LUSE. Is that better? 

I’m strongly opposed to the recent decision to repeal net neutrality protections. The lack of net neutrality tips the scale in favor 

of large enterprises and puts small businesses and startups at a severe disadvantage if large enterprises are able to purchase fast 

lanes to speed up the delivery of their websites to consumers. My 

company is an internet marketing company and web development 

company that helps startups and small to midsize businesses succeed and grow online. 

I founded Paragon in 2012 in Keene. We’ve grown from a startup 

of one, me, and now we’re a team of 13 employees in six short 

years. We have clients all over the country, a few overseas, in a 

wide array of industries. At Paragon we’ve spent a lot of time over 

the past few years making our clients’ websites load faster, and the 

amount of time we’ve spent optimizing websites has increased substantially over the last couple of years. 

Website speed or load times have a major impact on our clients’ 

sales and leads. The issue is two-fold. The number of visitors finding a business’ website declines when the site is slow, and the rate 

at which people sign up or buy something on those sites also declines. That’s known as the conversion rate, which declines rapidly 

as the speed of the site slows down. Data from Google, Amazon, 

and industry experts, as well as our own data from working with 

our own clients confirms that website speeds do have a big impact 

on the ability to attract visitors to a website and keep them there 

long enough to buy or sign up for a service. 

The speed of a website directly impacts the search engine 

rankings of a website as well. The slower a website is, the less likely it is to appear at the top of search results. Free traffic from 

search engines can be extremely important for startups or small 

businesses. Receiving less free traffic from search engines makes it 

harder for startups to gain traction and for small businesses to 

compete if they don’t have deep pockets to pay for ads. 

In addition, there is a direct correlation between the speed of a 

website, commonly measured by page speed, and the rate at which 

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people make a purchase on a website. The conversion rate declines 

rapidly as websites’ load times increase. A study by industry experts, Kissmetrics, shows that just a 1-second delay on page speed 

can result in a 7 percent decrease in conversion rates. 

An internal Amazon study showed that for every 100 milliseconds, or a tenth of a second, you slowed down their website, it 

would cause them a loss of 1 percent in sales, which would cost the 

company about $1.7 billion a year. Amazon is a very well-known 

and trusted brand. The impact on small businesses that aren’t as 

well-known or trusted is likely to be greater. 

Consumers expect fast and frictionless experiences online and 

are becoming ever more impatient. This means that speed of 

websites is likely to become more and more crucial over the coming 

years. 

The internet was a great equalizer, allowing small startups to innovate and disrupt industries long controlled by large corporations. 

America’s small businesses and startups should not be put at a disadvantage, and the next YouTube, Google, Facebook, or Amazon 

should have a level playing field, the same level playing field that 

was afforded to the very successful internet companies that once 

were startups as well. 

I certainly urge the committee to work to put net neutrality protections back in place for small businesses and our country so they 

can continue to compete on a fair and level playing field, and continue to innovate and grow and create jobs. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify. Your interest and action 

on this issue is very important to the future of small businesses 

across the country. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Luse follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thanks very much, Zach. 

Lisa. 

STATEMENT OF LISA DRAKE, DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY 

INNOVATION, STONYFIELD FARM, INC., LONDONDERRY, NH 

Ms. DRAKE. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony 

regarding our company’s concerns about the FCC’s decision to roll 

back net neutrality. Stonyfield is a yogurt manufacturer based in 

Londonderry, and we work with small businesses across the State 

and the region primarily to source our first ingredient, which is 

milk. 

As a business with strong ties to the rural and agricultural business community, we share these concerns from a business perspective. We regularly witness how small rural businesses, including 

the farms and cooperatives that we source from, already struggle 

with limited access to broadband and limited options for internet 

service providers. The repeal of net neutrality would compound the 

challenges faced by these small businesses, adding cost and creating a competitive disadvantage for running a successful business 

in rural America. 

Uninhibited access to the internet is a fundamental necessity for 

operating a successful business in rural areas, and this is only 

going to become more important into the future. In our work with 

farmers in the State and the region, we see how these businesses 

are increasingly reliant on the internet for access to technical information and support, to market information, and for communication 

with customers and vendors. 

Under this change, internet providers would gain new powers to 

steer businesses and customers using access to the internet. For example, internet access providers could charge new fees for 

prioritized access, and while large businesses and farms might be 

able to afford a pay-to-play prioritized fast lane, small and medium-sized businesses may not be able to and put them at a distinct disadvantage with larger competitors. 

Without net neutrality, internet access providers could charge 

rural businesses new fees for access, specifically to websites or to 

services. They could favor certain businesses by slowing down traffic or exempting traffic from data caps. Tiered service plans could 

throttle user access to a limited group of websites, or block 

websites outright. It could also potentially limit or bias farmers’ access to products, services, and information that they need to run 

their business. So these possible outcomes could create immense 

uncertainty for companies in every sector of the economy who rely 

on open and unencumbered connectivity as a key enabler for their 

business. 

Ultimately, if the repeal of net neutrality is implemented, it will 

have a crippling effect on rural economies, further limiting investment in rural infrastructure and restricting access to the internet 

for rural businesses, at a point in time when we feel we need to 

expand and speed this access instead. 

So I urge you to consider these impacts on the repeal of net neutrality rules and focus on advancing policies that foster fair competition. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Drake follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Lisa. 

Josh. 

STATEMENT OF JOSHUA CYR, DIRECTOR OF ACCELERATION 

AND EDUCATION, ALPHA LOFT, PORTSMOUTH, NH 

Mr. CYR. Thank you, Senator. I really appreciate everyone’s comments so far. I just want to point out that there are so many familiar faces in the audience here who are helping businesses in New 

Hampshire, and I really appreciate everything you’ve done and 

that you’re here today and listening to this as well. 

I’ve worked with many startups throughout the State of New 

Hampshire over the past several years, and there’s a unique aspect 

of a startup that makes them their own type of small business. 

Startups, by definition, are attempting a new business with many 

unknowns in their model. 

I have to remove my glasses so I can read here. 

Senator SHAHEEN. We sympathize. 

Mr. CYR. It’s a new thing for me. 

So startups, by default, startups have to do something that’s 

new, that’s not a traditional business model. So they’re going to 

change their model, their product, or their approach. Startups create opportunities through innovation. That innovation lies either in 

new spin on an old business model or on innovative products themselves. 

Startups also have high growth potential. They don’t typically 

focus on a small geographic area, at least not at the start. Ultimately, this means that competition is not their local businesses 

but large businesses with broad interests. Almost always, this competition has a substantially larger financial resource. The repeal of 

net neutrality protections enables a small handful of very powerful 

internet providers tremendous control over what is delivered to 

consumers’ homes and the speed at which it’s delivered. Without 

net neutrality, the power and control these internet providers have 

will allow them to create artificial market barriers. These barriers 

stifle innovation and competition and serve to only protect powerful 

incumbents and extract higher fees from consumers. 

Startups may find the price to be paid for preferred access to be 

too great at their earliest and most vulnerable stages, yet many 

will feel that they have no choice as slow website speeds will hurt 

their bottom line. 

So study after study has shown that user balance rate, which is 

the percentage of people who leave a site immediately, rises tremendously—we’ve heard some stats on that, so I’m going to skip 

what I had written here and just come to the short part of this, 

which is that page speed is so important that Google factors it into 

their search rankings. While search rankings will not be impacted 

by speed shifting of internet service providers, the intent of the 

ranking focused on page speed still remains. Speed has an immediate impact on user engagement. 

Now, some may suggest that if consumers felt strongly about the 

issues of net neutrality, they could simply vote with their dollars, 

picking a provider in line with their needs. That would presume 

consumers fully understood the detail of internet plans, and even 

if consumers did, a responsive market would require a healthy 

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marketplace of options. Many U.S. consumers do not have a choice 

in their high-speed broadband. Those that do often find themselves 

in long-term contracts, limiting their options. The FCC’s own Internet Access Services Report this February of 2018 showed that in 

many areas there’s no high-speed broadband at all. However, in 

areas with broadband speeds of 25 megabits per second or higher, 

between 30 and 40 percent of homes have only one option for a provider, and that’s true of the State I grew up in, Idaho, but also true 

of my home State now, New Hampshire. 

Consumers have little to no choice for their provider, which 

means the market isn’t being driven by consumer net neutrality 

concerns. Consumers need high-speed internet access even if the 

provider isn’t providing the kind of service the consumers want. 

In summary, any net neutrality protections will be detrimental 

to a healthy competition for small businesses, including startups. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cyr follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Well, thank you all very much. You’ve obviously given us a lot to think about, and I’d like to now explore a 

little bit in further detail some of the issues that you’ve raised. 

I want to start with you, MJ, because one of the things you said, 

and I hadn’t heard this before, is that you think it’s not enough for 

us just to repeal what the FCC did, that you think we really need 

bipartisan legislation that puts in place net neutrality rules. So 

what should those include, and why do you think that’s so important? And I’m going to ask everybody to jump in on that. 

Mr. SHOER. Well, to the importance, it’s simply that it shouldn’t 

be at the whim of who’s in the White House, and that’s not a slam 

on the current Administration. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Sure. 

Mr. SHOER. But we’re in this cycle now, this unfortunately sustained cycle that every time the party in the White House turns, 

various legislation is rolled back and put back in place, oftentimes 

even without any modification. So the only way to hedge that is 

with permanent legislation. 

I also think, just because I consider myself a lost soul in our political system, if you will—when I was here on campus I was a diehard Reagan Republican, conservative as could be. Then I had kids. 

Then I matured a little bit and I became an independent because 

while I am socially very liberal, I am fiscally and in foreign policy 

very conservative. There’s no home for me in our political system 

today. There needs to be, and the only way we’re going to get there 

is if we can find anything that Congress can come together on 

across aisles and pass. 

While I recognize that this really has some true partisan division, that the Republicans by and large favor the repeal, the Democrats by and large favor retaining the rules, if we really step back 

and look at the engine of our economy, we all know it’s small business, and we have got to protect it. We have seen innovation like 

we have never seen in our human existence since the internet came 

to be in its current form, and anything that changes that free and 

open access and limits the competitive opportunities for that access 

will damage our economy. There’s no question about it. There are 

so many studies. 

So that’s really why. I mean, I think it rises to the level of warranting that kind of legislation. Quite frankly, we’re not here to 

talk about data privacy, but data privacy regulations are the same 

thing. We’ve got every State in the Nation creating their own regulations, and if we want to kill small business and entrepreneurship, 

let’s let every State create their own regulation, and then let’s go 

and explain to every small business that those businesses in multiple states have to comply with each State’s set of laws. It’s not 

a sustainable model for growth. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Can I ask if others want to jump in on this? 

Ms. PEARSON. Sure. I would like to add that the best-case scenario would be not only bipartisan legislation but a diverse group 

of bipartisan legislation so that we have the voices and perspectives of women business owners, minority business owners, and 

other underserved, because unless you have the perspective and 

the experience, the life experience and the understanding of the 

barriers that each demographic, each constituency creates, you’re 

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only going to have legislation from one point of view, and one size 

does not fit all. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Anyone else? 

Ms. DRAKE. I would just add support for legislation to create consistency for businesses in policy and the stability that’s needed for 

businesses to make decisions to determine investments, in which 

communities they’re going to settle in, and knowing what resources 

they’re going to have, including internet as a tool. 

Mr. SHOER. I think that’s a great point, Lisa, because I know the 

folks I’ve talked to with CompTIA have said the biggest concern 

that they’re hearing across the membership is consistency, a consistent message so that they can plan, because it’s very difficult, 

even for the large companies, ironically. You know, we’re talking 

about the small businesses, but even for the large companies out 

there, it’s very difficult for them to plan for uncertain futures. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Right. Uncertainty, whether it’s around the 

internet or budgets or whatever it is, is a real problem for business 

in general, and particularly for small businesses that have less 

ability to weather ups and downs. 

Anything else anybody wants to address with respect to what 

ought to be in a piece of legislation around net neutrality? 

[No response.] 

Let me then go to another issue that came up, and that is the 

need to optimize websites and reduce load times for customers. 

Zach, you talked about the importance of this. Can you talk about 

why this is such an issue for small business? 

Mr. LUSE. Yes, definitely. It’s a big issue because, frankly, slow 

websites are less effective, and if you slow some down, there’s nothing those people can do, aside from paying the providers to be in 

a fast lane, to make it faster beyond a certain point. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Talk, if you would—I think everybody here 

knows what we mean when we say pay-to-play and fast lanes 

versus slow lanes, but can you explain that a little more for people 

who may not be familiar with this conversation? 

Mr. LUSE. Yes. Fast lanes would allow players who have deep 

pockets to go purchase faster speeds. Their websites and their content are delivered to consumers faster, whereas the businesses that 

are particularly startups and small businesses may not have the 

ability to do that, especially startups who are just scraping together the funds to make their ideas happen. So it puts them at 

a severe disadvantage, and it also allows those big players to block 

competition and stifle competition, which is detrimental to our 

economy because so many of those great ideas and innovations 

come out of small businesses and startups. 

Senator SHAHEEN. I’m always impressed with the fact that small 

businesses have 16 times more patents per employee than large 

businesses, which is an eye-opener, I think, for most people. 

Josh, talk about what—I mean, you and Nancy, and you too, because you work with a lot of startups, are in a position to be able 

to see what they could sustain in terms of increased costs. So if net 

neutrality means an increased cost for access to the internet, is 

there a percentage or a level at which you think you then begin to 

price small businesses out of their ability to continue to have access 

to the internet? 

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Mr. CYR. It’s a great question, and I think it would probably really vary given the business. Let’s say for a startup, but I think the 

same would be true for any business, if I’m having to pay—if we 

step back a second and think about what Zach was saying about 

the fast lanes, all the traffic is going through the internet service 

provider to the consumer through the same pipe, right? There’s not 

technically a separate lane. But we know that the traffic from this 

website is somebody that pays us so we can go faster than the others that are going through the same pipe, so it gets channeled. 

So if I’m a startup and I want to make sure I have really good 

performance because people bounce off my website if I don’t have 

really good performance, I have to divert some sort of money to 

that. Well, for every dollar I’m diverting to pay for consumers to 

have a better experience on the exact same thing that everybody 

else is using, that’s one less dollar I can spend for digital marketers 

to help provide really great in-bound marketing services for me, or 

to hire a software developer to finally build or modify my minimum 

viable product, or to pay for advertising, or anything else, right? 

The two most valuable resources that a startup founder has, a 

small business owner has, is their time and their money, and anything we’re diverting that isn’t adding value back and creating better value for consumers is a waste. It’s a wasted resource. Right 

now, we know what those are. We have a level playing field and 

we know exactly how to plan for the future. If I don’t know what 

I’m going to have to spend, and I don’t know what to even tell 

startups what they’re going to have to plan and budget because we 

just don’t know, that’s a really scary place. 

So I guess the answer is that every single dollar that’s spent 

could have been put in a better place which could have gotten them 

further along. If a startup I’m working with runs out of money before they can build a new and viable product or they can find the 

love with the customer, the product market fit, they’re not in business anymore, right? 

And it’s not simply a matter of a few hundred dollars a month 

or a thousand dollars a month or whatever that is. That’s sort of 

making it about the money, and it’s really about can I survive long 

enough to get to a place where everybody wants to buy what I have 

to sell, and then once I get there, do I have enough money to actually get it into consumers’ hands and funnel the growth. We can 

talk about growth and investment and all that stuff later on, but 

it’s not a simple formula. It’s really complicated and scary. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Robert, and then Zach. 

Mr. ZAKON. Sure. So, I’ll pick up on the theme that you heard 

a little bit there, uncertainty. That’s a huge concern for small businesses, something that I keep hearing over and over again. Just a 

few weeks ago, touring a harness manufacturer up in the Mt. 

Washington Valley—— 

Senator SHAHEEN. Harmon? Harness? 

Mr. ZAKON. Harness. They make leashes, those kinds of products, and one of the big concerns for them is now having more than 

half their sales online. But the other one is things like sales tax, 

as well, and the concern about what can happen there. So even 

though we’re being told that if it goes away and we no longer have 

a neutral internet, it does not necessarily mean the next day that 

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you’re going to be charged that much more. But it’s the uncertainty 

that down the road it might happen. As my colleagues mentioned, 

that could mean the investment that could have been going somewhere else, or perhaps a funder, as I mentioned in my intro, 

wouldn’t be willing to invest in your company because there’s too 

much uncertainty of whether you will really be in a position to 

offer your service if someone comes in and charges much more for 

them. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Zach. 

Mr. LUSE. I would just add to that. That issue is compounded by 

taking money away from whatever their core business is because 

the marketing and advertising dollars are going to be less effective 

because less of those people are going to convert. Google’s advertising platform actually charges you more if you have a slow landing page. So you pay more for the ads than your competitors with 

a faster website, and then less of those people turn into customers. 

So it really snowballs. 

Senator SHAHEEN. It’s a double whammy. 

Mr. LUSE. Yes. 

Ms. PEARSON. Some of the clients that we see are even before 

this stage. They’re operating their businesses using already-existing platforms like Sea, like Facebook, like Instagram, with the 

hopes that they can invest to the point where they get to their own 

website and their own internet sales. What I see as a great concern 

is that they will never get there. That’s just a whole class of businesses that are not going to be able to work their way up into even 

the small business community. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Robert, you talked about how you have seen 

work impeded, and you’ve seen that in some other countries because of the way the internet operates in other countries. Did I understand that correctly? And can you give us some examples of 

what you’ve seen? 

Mr. ZAKON. Sure. So, our software initiative and application, it 

integrates with software and services from other companies. At 

times, these services that we utilize as part of our software have 

been blocked in certain locations, in some other countries around 

the world. When this happens, it appears to be an issue of our software, so the client will contact us. This can be pretty burdensome 

from an impact standpoint in terms of tracking down the issue, 

providing support, trying to develop workarounds, if that’s even 

possible when we’re dealing with another nation altogether. 

I expect if a U.S. internet provider ends up blocking or throttling 

a service that we integrate with, or even our own, the effect is 

going to be truly burdensome for us and for our clients as well, 

even more so when you consider the number of providers that we’re 

really talking about here. I’m certain that some large companies 

will evolve to offer a service to bypass some of this, but that would 

likely mean us not being as agile, as lean in the services that we’re 

currently really able to engineer for ourselves. 

I realize that Nancy is talking about a different type of small 

business. Our business, we understand the technology. We can 

often kind of work around it. But again, with my score hat on, and 

I do not speak for the organization, only for myself as a counselor, 

I’ve seen too many businesses that can’t even get started with 

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what’s out there. When you talk about looking at what are the 

terms of service, they have no way of even comparing things like 

that. So it very much becomes an impact, and when we look at it 

globally or internationally, it’s a non-starter. 

Senator SHAHEEN. We had a small roundtable with a number of 

businesses at Alpha Loft earlier this year, and we had this whole 

conversation about the workaround because there were a couple of 

people who said, well, if this happens, technology will help us develop a workaround so we can avoid it. And we had this conversation that lasted probably 20 to 30 minutes about this whole issue, 

and at the end of it one of the participants said look how much 

time we’ve been spending just talking about this. Imagine if it happened how much time it would take businesses to focus on this, to 

deal with it, and the time it would take away from other things 

that they need to do. So it’s really not an option at this point, and 

it doesn’t make sense for us to do that. 

Mr. ZAKON. It certainly hits the bottom line. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Absolutely. 

So, several of you have talked about the challenges that startups 

have with getting funding. I know it’s a particular concern for 

women-owned businesses, Nancy, but it’s obviously a concern for 

most startups. Can you elaborate on the impact on startups with 

a repeal of net neutrality, what that would mean for things like 

crowd funding and access to other investors who might be interested in a startup? 

Mr. CYR. I’ll go ahead, if you don’t mind. 

If you think about what investors are looking for, at the very 

early stages they’re investing in the team. They believe the team 

has an excellent idea and they’re going to be able to make it, and 

they’re going to use the resources they’re given, this investment, in 

a reasonable fashion to be able to get there. 

They’re also, through all their due diligence and research, seeking to reduce risk wherever they can. That’s why they do the due 

diligence. It would be the same for anybody giving out money, really. So if you see a really compelling team and an awesome startup 

and a great idea, and then realize it’s going to be enormously expensive just to pay-to-play to be able to compete because of whatever constraints are put onto the network, more barriers, is that 

a good use of those resources? 

The reality is for a typical investor, it’s not like they only hear 

a dozen good ideas a year. A lot of ECs will receive 100 solicitations 

a day. They’re evaluating hundreds of thousands over the course of 

a year. So they’re making good decisions, and if they’re seeing possible barriers, possible issues, they have all these other good ideas. 

So it’s just knocking good ideas right from the start. 

I think we don’t want to see resources put to use simply to pay 

fees when we could see those put to use to see growth or build 

product. Those are the two things that any business has to do at 

the very beginning stages, small businesses, and specifically for 

startups. You’re either building something or you’re selling something, and a lot of the other stuff that you do around that is supporting that. If you’re not doing those two things or something that 

supports those two things, you’re probably putting resources at the 

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wrong time. So you want to make sure that money is put to those 

two things. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Anybody else? 

Ms. PEARSON. Well, for us, the majority of our clients are not 

really good candidates for that kind of startup funding opportunity. 

But I will say that we spend a lot of time with our clients exploring 

all the possible revenue streams and sales channels. So if you take 

a whole channel away because of the unknowns, that is a huge concern for the potential viability of their business. So again, it’s the 

unknown and the barrier to entry. 

Senator SHAHEEN. I think platforms like Ebay and Etsy have 

really made a difference and provided opportunities. I have a staff 

here that says 87 percent of Etsy sellers are female, and we heard 

from one Etsy seller in New Hampshire, Gail Kimble, who is from 

New Hampshire Bowl and Board. Some of you may be familiar 

with that. They’re in Webster. And she wrote—and I think her 

quote is worth repeating here. She said, ‘‘The e-commerce world is 

super competitive, and the big guys have all the advantages.’’ 

You’ve all alluded to that in some way. ‘‘Net neutrality at least 

keeps the door open. Without net neutrality, I’m quite sure my 

margin will shrink to the place where I’ll have no choice but to 

close up and give up.’’ So it really shows the impact on small business owners who are looking at what will happen if we repeal net 

neutrality. 

Lisa, one of the things, again, that people have referred to—and 

we’ve got people here from all over the State—Keene, Londonderry, 

North Conway, Nashua. But you talked about the real impact for 

your rural providers for Stonyfield, and with the exception of the 

cows, can you talk a little more about what this means for rural 

entrepreneurs who really are often in places in New Hampshire 

where they don’t have access to good internet, much less what it 

would mean if that access totally goes away and costs more? 

Ms. DRAKE. These are small family owned operations that we 

work with. You may think of dairy farming as low tech. It’s cows 

eating grass. But really, technology is influencing farming as much 

as it is many other areas of our economy. So technology is a tool 

that farmers are using more and more to manage their farm, to improve their operations, and to improve the economic aspects of 

their operation. They use it to monitor feed and monitor markets 

where they’re buying feed. They’re using robotic milkers. They have 

all kinds of technology around milk quality, and lots of communication needs with both vendors and customers. 

So all of this is an important means of functioning as a business, 

and to add on top of living in rural areas don’t have necessarily 

consistently strong cell service either, so the internet really, truly 

is—reliable internet is a connection to the community. And just to 

go further on the technology front, we continue to work on developing better software and tools for farmers for data collection and 

monitoring and trending so that they really have more intelligence 

about the operation of their farm. 

Mr. SHOER. Senator, I can share a story about a customer in a 

rural part of the State. Their business is somewhat unique, but 

what often gets lost is you have to think about the supply chain 

of the business, which is somewhat what Lisa is talking about. But 

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in this case, this business found that over a period of years all of 

their technical manuals, all of their resources all went online. This 

used to be a business that could order—I think back to when I was 

a kid and the World Book would show up. They used to have the 

bookshelf full of their technical resources. That’s all online now, 

and they found themselves in a very difficult position because there 

was no competition for access, and their access was dreadfully 

slow, and it was significantly showing impact. 

Now, this business had to negotiate with a broadband provider 

and had to spend over six figures to get that provider to bring access to them, and it was a choice of spend it or close the doors. 

So back to the access piece of the equation, we have got to find 

a way to get the competitive geographies expanded because we’ve 

got businesses that are at significant disadvantage on a regional 

scale, national, and in some cases global. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Robert. 

Mr. ZAKON. I’ll continue with the rural theme here, just to give 

another view of it. It’s been mentioned that oftentimes, especially 

up in the North Country, some of the rural counties in New Hampshire, there is no alternative. There is hopefully one high-speed 

provider that you can rely on. For a client we have who they pipe 

music and video from the internet into their waiting area, if they 

can’t get internet for that, not critical. They still have radios 

around. They can turn it on. But another client in the medical profession sends blood work over the internet and instantaneously receives results on their mobile app. So if they don’t have the ability 

to do that anymore because net neutrality is not in place, it becomes too cost prohibitive for them. There is no alternative service. 

The quality of care is going to suffer. 

So as we look into tele-medicine and all the other wonderful innovations that we have, and innovation has been a theme here, it’s 

much less likely for us to be able to deal with that in a State like 

New Hampshire. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Absolutely, and I want to get back to the telemedicine piece because it is so important in New Hampshire. But 

before I do that, I have a statistic here that the University of New 

Hampshire has done. They have a report on the state of broadband 

in New Hampshire from 2015, and they asked New Hampshire 

residents about their limited provider options. When asked why 

they’re using their current provider, 39 percent said it’s the only 

option available to them. So, think about that. Almost 40 percent 

of the State says we have no other choice, and that doesn’t count 

the people who don’t have a choice, who don’t have a provider at 

all. There are some parts of New Hampshire that don’t really have 

a provider at all unless it’s dialup or so slow that it’s really hard 

to use. 

But I want to go back to the tele-medicine because that’s a really 

important issue that you raised. For, again, so much of the State, 

because we’re rural, it’s the one way we have access to different 

specialties and to information and expertise and physicians that we 

wouldn’t have otherwise. 

I had a chance to visit the VA clinic up in Littleton, and what 

they’re doing, they’re using tele-medicine to bring in psychiatrists 

and psychologists for counseling there because they can’t afford it 

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otherwise. But if they can do it through their tele-health, they’re 

able to make it available to all of the veterans who come in. So, 

as you say, this would have real implications for being able to do 

that in parts of New Hampshire because if it costs more, what does 

that mean for the physicians? They’re either going to have to 

charge their patients more or they’re not going to be able to afford 

it. 

So, do you want to elaborate on that a little more? 

Mr. ZAKON. Sure. I’ll actually give the example that I keep hearing, which is more from the opposite side of the argument, which 

is, well, if we do away with net neutrality, the large internet providers can now offer that high-speed route so that you can have 

those kinds of services. Unfortunately, I don’t think that really 

pans out, because if I’m going to provide a remote surgery, for example, I’m going to want a dedicated circuit to be able to do that. 

I am not simply going to want that network traffic going through 

the public internet overall without some major paring agreements 

in there. 

Just yesterday, there was a router outage in the internet backbone. I think it was in Florida. And we got calls from clients who 

couldn’t access one of our data centers there. It was not life and 

death, but again, that’s where it really comes in. So I think the 

whole remote surgery, tele-medicine, all of that becomes a critical 

service, and I think necessarily it means that it really should not 

just be a part of the standard internet as we generally know it. 

You’re looking more at internet 2 capabilities that are out there. 

Mr. SHOER. I think the other elephant in the room around telehealth is that we’ve seen the consolidation going on in the health 

care system and how few private practices are still able to survive 

with hospital systems or insurance systems buying up practices. So 

imagine a world without net neutrality where either an insurer or 

a hospital system that has significant cash resources can make 

deals with ISPs to prioritize their preferred end tele-health provider. It could significantly change that entire industry. 

Right now, that is somewhat of an upstart level playing field industry. We have clients that are using remote radiologists that are 

in the United States, as well as all around the world. For various 

reasons, that could go away or it could change dramatically, and 

it could absolutely impact quality of care. 

Mr. ZAKON. And an example from another industry, if all of a 

sudden the electrical industry decides to say, you know, we’re going 

to start charging more to one brand of computer or appliance going 

to the wall and the plug behind me here to get your electrical service, I don’t think we generally stand for that. But that is, in large 

part, what we’re talking about here. It’s limiting the choice. I may 

now no longer be able to use one appliance brand but now have to 

use another one. 

Or going back to when we had multiple phone services, and I’m 

going back many, many years, before my time, I think—— 

Senator SHAHEEN. Some of us remember that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ZAKON [continuing]. Where you may have had multiple telephones depending on who you wanted to talk to. So it’s between 

the party line and where we are today. 

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Senator SHAHEEN. We heard from an occupational therapist 

named Rachel who is in Litchfield, and she wrote to us about her 

concerns. She said, ‘‘Ending net neutrality will cut off resources 

from individuals who can’t afford to pay extra for internet services. 

It will be harder for these people to communicate with others and 

receive information they desperately need about their health. Additionally, ending net neutrality will make it harder for my clients 

to access resources that help them to cope with PTSD, depression, 

and other challenges.’’ You all have said it very well. 

So, the one topic that we haven’t yet covered is around the argument that we should repeal net neutrality rules and let the Federal 

Trade Commission do the actual enforcement. So when there’s a 

problem, small businesses can go through the FTC and they can 

have their concerns addressed. Do you all think that’s realistic? 

Zach. 

Mr. LUSE. My understanding is it’s a terrible idea, because the 

FTC is just going to be enforcing when somebody files a complaint. 

They’re not going to be out there policing. And the process, from 

what I understand, is pretty tedious. Maybe small business associations might be able to handle that, but a small business isn’t going 

to have time to really do that. 

Mr. SHOER. It’s a reactive stance. 

Ms. DRAKE. I would agree. Our farmers need to stay on the farm 

and focus on farming and not submitting complaints about their 

internet service. It’s really too much to ask of the small business 

owner. 

Mr. SHOER. It’s shifting the burden in the wrong place, and there 

are other laws on the books in states where they’ve relied on FTC 

practice and precedence, and those laws have not played out well 

because of that. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Absolutely. 

Anything else, as we’re getting close to wrapping up here? Are 

there any other points that folks wanted to make that haven’t been 

made yet? 

Nancy. 

Ms. PEARSON. I actually want to add to the health care conversation. I just tallied up some clients that I’m currently working with 

right now, in 2018. One is a physical therapist who delivers pain 

management services online. I have two nutritionists that deliver 

their services online. I have a personal trainer, and I have a fertility coach. All of them are working through tele-conferencing with 

their clients across northern New England. The physical therapist 

who deals with pain management has found a niche in addiction 

recovery. 

So these are real implications that we’re talking about, because 

if people don’t have access to these services that their insurance 

won’t necessarily pay for but it’s cost effective, it just has real-life 

consequences to more than just small business but the quality of 

life for people and some major, major issues going on in the State. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Yes, it does, and we also don’t really know 

what all those implications are, as many of you have said. We’ve 

asked the GAO to do a study on what the potential impact is going 

to be on small businesses. Of course, we don’t have that report yet, 

but just among the concerns that you all have raised, you can see 

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the potential impact on small businesses and the ripple effect that 

has through the economy as we’re thinking about job creation and 

development of new technologies and innovation. 

One of the things that we haven’t talked about because we’ve 

been focused on small businesses, but I think it’s important to 

think about as we look at the workforce challenges that we have 

in New Hampshire right now. Everywhere I’ve been in the last two 

years, the number-one issue has been workforce. 

What does it mean for young people and for workers if net neutrality changes and they aren’t able to get information, Josh? 

Mr. CYR. The way I see it is that states with more rural residents will probably suffer the most. I mean, if you think about I’m 

graduating from UNH and I’m looking to make my mark in the 

world, internet access is really going to be important to me. It’s 

sort of foundational for how I grew up and what I expect. I start 

shopping around and I find that there’s no broadband in certain 

areas, they’re out. I’m not moving to the North Country. I’m not 

moving to all these other areas. I’m going to be moving to a place 

that has an internet service provider with a record I know and 

want. Maybe there’s somebody who is voluntarily continuing with 

the net neutrality rules. That’s probably in really competitive markets. 

So I think what we’re going to see is new generations moving, 

primarily motivated because of reasons like that, to go to heavy 

competitive markets and skipping over the places that may not be 

able to offer those sorts of services if they find it’s so important. 

And I think that we’ve heard time and time again that they do. So 

I think it’s going to be specifically impactful for rural areas in a 

very negative way. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Zach, did you want to comment on that? 

Mr. LUSE. Yes. I think for my business in particular, it will impact it heavily. It’s already hard enough to attract and retain 

young workers in Keene. When they go home and they only have 

one option, if they have one option, of a provider, and you layer net 

neutrality on top of that where they might not be able to stream 

the content they want, it just compounds the issue. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Lisa, you wanted to say something. 

Ms. DRAKE. Yes. Just to take Josh’s comments one step further, 

I think that what he is describing about young people making 

choices about where they’re going to live, this is about the vitality 

of our rural communities. We’re already seeing an exodus of young 

people from our rural areas, and it has a great impact on the vitality and the longevity of those communities and their health as a 

community. So I think if we don’t want the exodus of all our young 

people to urban areas, this is something really important to consider. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Yes, absolutely. 

Mr. SHOER. I think there is also a significant risk to the diversification of our workforce. In the tech industry, we are very, very 

concerned about getting more women and disadvantaged minorities 

into that workforce because it’s typically been coming out of those 

who can afford four-year college, but we’ve proven with any one of 

a number of initiatives that those other communities can more easily access the education to get them a foothold in to build a career. 

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If net neutrality regulations are not in place, the large providers 

are going to start to get into the areas of the business that, quite 

frankly, they don’t have any business getting into, and it could directly impact our ability to encourage young women, young minorities to get into technology fields. 

Even in our case, we’ve had a handful of employees over the last 

18 months relocate for family reasons, and we’ve been able to retain them because, thank God, they’ve been able to get to an area 

where they had unfettered good broadband internet access. If that 

weren’t the case, we would have lost some wonderful employees 

that we’ve actually been able to retain. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Robert. 

Mr. ZAKON. And I would actually like to add another category of 

individuals to the list, and that is the disabled. Homebound individuals had startups before where we’ve had 20-plus homebound 

individuals that were doing meaningful work for us, for our company, in large part because there was an equal-access internet. 

They were able to come use the services that we have been using. 

There was no concern about, well, you’re with a different provider, 

you can’t use the service that we offer and therefore we cannot hire 

you. And that’s really critical across the board. 

Senator SHAHEEN. That’s a great point. 

Mr. SHOER. Very good point. 

Senator SHAHEEN. And, you know, the frustration for me is the 

responses to all of the points that all of you have made this morning have really been nonexistent. I mean, the biggest argument 

that I’ve heard for repealing net neutrality has been that, well, it 

will provide for more innovation. But, in fact, I think what we’ve 

heard from all of you is that you all think it would be less innovation. And the other implications for what we might be looking at 

are some unknown but certainly much more impactful than what 

we’ve heard from anybody at the FCC and for those who are proponents of this repeal. 

Robert. 

Mr. ZAKON. Yes. For me it really comes down to there was a lot 

that internet providers could be doing already that they’re not, that 

we are in the world we are today with regard to cyber security and 

privacy. That is something that they are empowered to take actions 

on. They are our tunnel to the internet. They can protect us, in 

large part, with regards to that. That is not something that I think, 

in large part, is done. The internet of things, we hear about how 

insecure they are. That is something that internet providers are in 

a position, in large part, to potentially help with. Yes, there are potential privacy issues and the like in there, but the leadership has 

not been there, and that will go a very long way with regard to saying, yes, there may be some leeway here. But as of right now, at 

least, I don’t see it. 

Senator SHAHEEN. You mentioned the phone company and the 

changes when we deregulated the telephone industry, and the innovations that developed as a result of that. We’re seeing that in 

the utility industry with the change in the way we provide electricity and utility service to folks. 

It seems to me that this goes in the wrong direction, that instead 

of opening things up to provide more innovation and more access, 

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what we’re talking about is closing things in a way that reduces 

access, reduces innovation, and that’s not going to be good for anybody, I think, except the big players who have the potential to 

make money and really have a monopoly over what goes on. 

Well, thank you, everybody, again. Any final comments that 

someone wants to make that you haven’t had a chance to? 

Mr. LUSE. I would just reiterate that with repealing net neutrality, you’re kind of changing the underlying fabric of the internet 

that’s been there since the beginning, and there are probably so 

many implications that we can’t even imagine. If you look at where 

we were 10 years ago and where we’re going, we don’t really even 

know how it could be detrimental to the future. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Well, again, thank you all very much. Special 

thanks to our panelists and for those of you who came. Many of you 

traveled long distances to get here, so we really appreciate that, 

your willingness to be here. 

I am looking forward to being able to take back what I’ve heard 

this morning and share that with my colleagues in Washington. I’m 

pleased that we’ll have it as part of the record of the Small Business Committee and look forward to working to address both what 

the FCC has done and to think about how we can do bipartisan legislation that will really provide some certainty in the future. 

As I said, we have, I think, two weeks for additional questions 

and statements. So anyone in the audience who would like to weigh 

in, we have two weeks to do that, and you can get them—Chris, 

where should they send those? 

Mr. NEARY. They can send them to Kathryn, or they can send 

them to me. 

Senator SHAHEEN. So you can send it to our office or to the committee. Both of those are available online, fittingly. 

[Laughter.] 

Yes, unrestricted, at least for the time being. 

[Laughter.] 

Thank you all for coming to join us in this conversation, and I 

look forward to seeing how things progress because I am, like all 

of you, very concerned about what the implications may be. 

Thanks very much. This hearing is now closed. 

[Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 11:22 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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