On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held a hearing on federal efforts to extend high-speed Internet access to small companies.

At the hearing, lawmakers and government officials charged with implementing broadband expansion mandates from the Recovery Act, including FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, discussed the value of broadband for job creation, global competitiveness and economic recovery. Ever-increasing prices and availability issues were among the top concerns of committee chair Sen. Mary Landrieu (D.-La.), Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) and other committee members.

Senator Kerry said, “It is shocking that in this year 2010….we are still strikingly disconnected in the United States. We’ve got to get going here. You can go to other countries and download the fastest rates possible. If you are in our country, you can’t do it.”

The Senators peppered the panelists with constituent stories of small business owners who benefit from broadband -- or have a job because they can get online.

The consensus among lawmakers and business owners was clear: high-speed broadband is essential for small business growth, and those that don’t have it are at a major disadvantage.

Unfortunately, missing from the discussion was the fact that small businesses – especially start-up businesses -- will be the most vulnerable if strong Net Neutrality rules aren’t enacted to ensure that they can compete on a level playing field.

In fact, a new study by a group of Penn State professors shows that small businesses need policies that protect the open Internet to thrive.

The study notes that small and medium-sized enterprises represent more than half of the U.S. GDP and generate two-thirds of new jobs. Its authors list Net Neutrality as a policy recommendation for small businesses to realize the full potential of broadband and as a key driver for economic recovery:

Service providers should not be able to discriminate between packets based on who originates them. Otherwise, small businesses which may not be able to secure advantageous terms may not be able to compete effectively… .

Free Press has also shown that Net Neutrality will spur investment and job growth for small businesses, and that ISP claims that it will hurt investment are hollow. In fact Qwest, the seventh largest ISP, applied for federal grant money last month to fund deployment of a neutral network -- which just further shows that these rules would not impact investment and that these companies are saying one thing while doing the other.

Free Press and nearly 250,000 individual supporters also filed in the proceeding in support of Net Neutrality, in addition to many small business owners, who are counting on lawmakers to keep in mind that Internet access is of limited use for small businesses without ensuring an open Internet.