Printer
Friendly Version
WYDEN TESTIFIES ON NET NEUTRALITY
AT COMMERCE COMMITTEE HEARING
February 7, 2006
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of Congress’ leading advocates of
responsible and consumer-friendly technology growth, today testified
before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
about on the issue of internet neutrality.
Senator Wyden’s prepared testimony
follows:
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
Prepared Testimony before the Senate Committee
on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Hearing on Net Neutrality
Mr. Chairman, 10 years ago in this
room a bipartisan group of Senators decided that while we had
not invented the Internet we wanted to help it prosper.
Our bipartisan group determined
that the Internet was being subjected to discriminatory taxation,
and we wrote the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which really should
have been called the Internet Nondiscrimination Act. The principle
behind the bill was technological neutrality – you shouldn’t
tax the online world differently that the off-line world.
The law has been a success, and
in my view a significant catalyst for the Net’s growth.
Now there is another challenge facing
the Net that also needs to be tackled in a bipartisan way. Powerful
interests who own the pipes and access to the Internet are trying
to break the Net. These special interests want to expand their
control over Internet access to the limitless world of content,
where consumers play online games, watch online tv and enjoy video.
At present, consumers use the high
speed access to the Net that they have paid for to visit whatever
content they want, whenever they want without having to worry
about having a cable company or a phone company interfering with
their use of the Net.
Some of these cable and phone companies
are trying to discriminate in the delivery of content. They are
saying that instead of making available to everyone the same content
at the same price, they want to set up sweetheart arrangements
to play favorites.
This is a fundamental shift in the
way the Internet works. Small start up companies and scores of
others have been able to start small and dream big because every
user has had equal access to all websites.
I want to keep it that way. I will
shortly introduce legislation that will make sure all information
is made available on the same terms so that no bit is better than
another one. First, it will assure that information from a company
like J. Crew is not treated worse than information from a company
like LL Bean. Second, it will assure that a company like Comcast
that offers Internet access does not give preferential treatment
to its own information bits compared to information bits from
another company, like Yahoo. Third, broadband service providers
should not be able to create private networks that are superior
to the Internet access they offer consumers generally. These principles
would prevent Internet access providers from tipping the competitive
advantage toward their own services, such as phone calls over
the Internet (Voip) or television over the Internet.
Consumer groups and the technology
community are four-square behind the notion that neutrality is
the best policy when it comes to the Internet, and I will continue
to work closely with them on this legislation. I also look forward
to working with the members of this Committee to make sure there
is no discrimination against consumers on the network.
# # #