Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) unveiled his net neutrality bill today during a media conference call (MP3 here), outlining the bill’s provisions, which include the following:
- Broadband providers will not be allowed to interfere with, block, degrade, alter, modify or change traffic on the Internet;
- Broadband providers will not be allowed to create a priority lane where content providers can buy quicker access to customers, while those who do not pay the fee are left in the slow lane;
- Broadband providers must allow consumers to choose which devices they use to connect to the Internet while they are on the net;
- Consumers should have non-discriminatory access and service; and
- The broadband world should have a transparent system in which consumers, Internet content, and applications companies have access to the rates, terms, and conditions for Internet service.
The bill also has provisions covering a complaint-filing process at the FCC, which aggrieved parties could use in the event of a problem.
During the call, Wyden was a forceful defender of the open Internet but, like so many net neutrality advocates, didn’t handle well questions regarding what kinds of specific market-based transactions would run afoul of the proposed legislation.
Wyden said his bill is “designed to make sure our country doesn’t face an information superhighway that is strewn with discriminatory hurdles. Unless you treat equal content with equal treatment, it seems to me the genius of the Internet will be undermined.”
He tried to dispel a misconception about his legislation; namely that it would bar the sale of different tiers of broadband service. “My legislation is still going to allow consumers to purchase higher speeds,” he said.
Wyden was questioned by reporters on several variations of the following question: What would be wrong with allowing a content provider to pay the operator for some kind of enhanced delivery given that under this scenario, the cost burden would shift away from the consumer and toward the content provider?
Or, another way of putting this question: Would Wyden’s legislation prohibit a content provider from paying extra to the broadband provider for improved delivery? Wyden couldn’t easily answer these kinds of questions, but simply said that he opposes a world in which non-transparent deals inject latency into access web sites (where one site with a “sweetheart deal” might take five seconds to appear but another site with no such deal might take five minutes to appear).
Wyden seemed to say as long as the sweetheart deals are transparent, his legislation would not bar such relationships. “The heart and soul of this legislation are the transparency provisions - you get all those deals out there in the open.”
Cynthia Brumfield at 5:27 PM|Comments(0)
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