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CenterFuse Broadband Feasibility Report I. NEEDS ASSESSMENT A. Business Interviews and Surveys One key part of the project was to talk directly to businesses in Ellensburg about the broadband they are able to buy today and ask if it satisfies their needs for broadband. We held in-depth interviews with twenty businesses in the community—CenterFuse helped us to identify the businesses. CenterFuse also posted an online business survey that asked similar questions to businesses. The survey reached a wide sample of different businesses in the city. The survey included businesses from throughout the community and include responses from the following types of businesses: • government broadband users like the school district, the library, the university, and the County administrative offices. • community institutions like the newspaper, the Chamber of Commerce visitor center, and a museum. • retail outlets like hotels, coffee shops, a brewery, and general retail outlets. • two local IT consultants that help businesses all over the city with broadband and other technical issues. Most of those we interviewed asked us not cite them by name in the written report, so we are not attributing any specific statements to specific entities. We learned a lot about the business community in this process: How Businesses use Broadband. One of the key things we discussed with businesses was the way that they currently use broadband. Because of the diverse list of businesses in our study universe we uncovered a wide range of ways that businesses in Ellensburg are using broadband today. Business told us that their use of broadband has grown significantly over just the past few years. We heard repeatedly how broadband is essential to businesses and how they could thrive or survive without good broadband. Some of the business uses of broadband that were reported to us include: • To Communicate with Customers. Several businesses we talked to have portals that make it easy for customers to place and track orders and to communicate with the business. The old days of transacting business through purchasing agents is fading away and commerce between companies is becoming digital and automated—which improves accuracy and speeds up the ordering process. • To Communicate with Vendors. We talked to businesses that use portals of their own vendors and suppliers to buy whatever they need to operate. • To Communicate with Other Branches of the Company. We talked to several businesses that are part of corporations with branches in multiple markets and which maintain open data connections to communicate with other parts of the company and with headquarters. Page 16