A low failure rate is especially important when the telecommuter is the company owner. Large corporations often invest in expensive gadgets intended to improve telecommuting. Two examples are special security devices and two-way video or shared chalkboards. Aside from being expensive, the needed equipment is more difficult to maintain and provides fewer benefits for the small business. The entire process needs to operate efficiently on a small scale.
All businesses try to control costs, but small businesses have less margin for error.
Also, a small business cannot take advantage of the economies of scale. For example, a large organization can use one PC to support many remote access phone lines, while a small company needs that same single PC to support just one phone line. Line speed is a crucial issue. Phone lines are much, much slower for transmitting data than network cables. This can make remote access tedious and frustrating.