The goal of the workshops will be to promote an open dialogue between the FCC and key constituents on matters important to the National Broadband Plan. Key constituents will include service providers, equipment providers, applications providers, community groups, and other groups that have a stake in the future of broadband. Workshops will consist of meetings held at the FCC. The public will have the opportunity to suggest meeting topics and questions for the workshops. All meetings will be broadcast over the Internet when possible, and archived for viewing at a later time to ensure that everyone has access to the content.

The goal of this workshop is to explore how broadband can help certain businesses. According to the US Census Bureau, minority-owned firms are growing four times faster than all US firms and accounted for over 50% of the 2 million businesses started in the US in the past decade. There are now more then 4 million minority-owned companies in the US and the US Census Bureau projects that minorities will become the majority in 2042.

The workshop will explore whether small and disadvantaged businesses (SDBs) are poised to take advantage of broadband technology and its antecedent benefits to help these businesses grow and reach new markets. It will explore whether communities where such small businesses reside are equipped with broadband, understand the value broadband brings to the business equation, and what, if any, role government, educational institutions and the private sector should undertake to assist SDBs to incorporate and harness the power of broadband.