[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 92 (Friday, July 14, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7547-S7549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             NET NEUTRALITY

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago I came to the floor of the 
Senate and announced I will do everything in my power to block 
consideration of the major communications overhaul legislation until it 
includes language that specifically ensures what is called Net 
neutrality.
  Now, since this is a new concept, and certainly much of the country 
probably has not heard these words before and Senators have been asking 
questions about it, I am going to begin this morning, and intend on 
other instances to continue the discussion, to start talking about why 
Net neutrality is so important and why I will do everything in my power 
to block legislation, major communications legislation, unless it 
ensures that Net neutrality is preserved.
  The bottom line about this concept is pretty simple. It means there 
will not be discrimination on the Internet. Today, after you pay your 
access charge, your Internet access fee, you get to take your browser 
and you get to go where you want, when you want, and everybody is 
treated the same: the mightiest person in the land, the most affluent, 
and somebody, say, in rural Georgia or rural Oregon who does not have a 
lot of power and does not have a lot of wealth.
  The Internet has been a huge step forward, in my view, for democracy, 
for the proposition our country is based on which is to give everybody 
a fair shake, where everybody is treated equally. It has meant a real 
bonanza for our citizens in areas such as education, health, business--
a whole host of fields. There needs to be a clear policy preserving the 
neutrality of the Internet. And without tough sanctions against those 
who would discriminate online, in my view, the Internet would be 
changed forever, for the worse. I intend to do everything in my power 
to keep that from happening.
  Since I came to the floor to announce that I will do everything I can 
to block this legislation in its current form, the phone companies and 
the major communications lobbies in this country have launched an all-
out advertising blitz. They are now spending millions of dollars trying 
to win passage of this legislation that does not include protection for 
Net neutrality. They are spending millions of dollars so they can make 
billions of dollars when they implement a two-tiered system online.
  They have been telling Wall Street about their plans for some time. 
The Wall Street Journal, for example, outlined a pay-to-play plan that 
the phone companies and the cable companies have been talking about in 
a fairly open kind of fashion.
  All this discussion suggests there is something of a looming shortage 
of bandwidth. Of course, bandwidth is the speed at which all the 
information on the Web travels to the user. But what has not been given 
enough attention thus far, and what I will talk about this morning and 
in the days ahead, is that the real Net neutrality fight is not 
primarily over bandwidth but who is going to call the shots in this 
country about content on the Web. Content is all the information that 
is out there on the Web. It includes music, movies, e-mails, newspaper 
articles and Web sites.
  Bandwidth speeds are getting faster and faster, allowing all this 
content to reach the users faster. But bandwidth without content is 
akin to a swimming pool without water. It is there, but you cannot do 
anything with it. So the real Net neutrality fight is going to be about 
content.
  Now, those who control the pipes--the way you get to the Internet--
also want to control the content. The reason for that is because 
content is king. What good is one gigabyte Internet connection if you 
cannot get to the Web sites you want to visit? Legislation that does 
not have strong Net neutrality protections will mean the American 
people will face discrimination in content.
  The Internet has thrived precisely because it is free of 
discrimination. It has thrived because consumers, and not some huge 
cable or phone company, get to choose what they want to see and how 
quickly they get to see it. I do not think there is anything odd about 
fighting against a bill that will take control of the Internet away 
from the American people.
  What the cable and phone executives propose is that instead of 
providing equal access for everyone to the same content, at the same 
price, they are going to be in a position to cut sweetheart deals, to 
give somebody they favor a better break than somebody whom they do not 
look upon in the same way. Those who own the pipes do not want to be 
told they cannot discriminate. They do not want to be told by the 
Congress, or anybody else, sweetheart deals are off limits.
  What I have done is tried to look at the Senate Commerce Committee 
legislation and compare it to the kinds of concerns I think the 
American people are going to have with the legislation in its current 
form. So what I would like to do now is outline three examples of what 
could happen in our country if communications legislation that allows 
discrimination on the Internet was allowed to go forward.
  The first example involves what I am calling the Barns family. The 
Barns family owns a struggling electronics store. Sales have been 
hammered lately because a new ``big box'' electronics store opened up 
down the road. George Barns' son Mike came up with an idea to save the 
store. He said: We can reach new customers. We will start a Web

[[Page S7548]]

site to sell our products on the Net. In a world with Net neutrality, 
the Barns family would pay to access the Internet, create a Web page, 
and they would be off to the races with their business and looking for 
opportunities.
  Under the Commerce Committee bill, in order for the Barns family to 
launch their Web page in the fast lane so they could get priority 
access to customers, they could have to pay an additional fee to 
hundreds, if not thousands, of Internet access providers across the 
land. Priority access fees are a drop in the bucket for that ``big 
box'' store that is already hurting the sales of that small business 
run by the Barns family. If the Barns family can't pay the extra fees, 
they lose their business to the ``big box'' store, both offline and 
online. You see how small businesses and people who are trying to make 
a contribution to the economy compete in the free markets; you are 
going to see how they are going to have difficulty under this 
legislation.
  The second example involves somebody whom I am calling Joe Green. Joe 
wants to get Internet broadband in his new apartment. Local cable is 
the only choice for Internet access, and it charges $32.99 for a 1.5-
megabyte-per-second connection. In a world with Net neutrality, when 
Joe buys his connection from local cable, he gets to visit any Web site 
he wants, when he wants, how he wants. If he wants to download a song, 
say, from iTunes for a buck, he can do that. If he wants to search the 
Web using Google or buy a DVD player online, Joe can do that, too. But 
under the legislation that came from the Commerce Committee, Joe may 
not be able to do any of those things unless he pays a new priority 
access charge on top of the $32.99 Internet access charge he is paying 
already. Unless he pays the additional priority fee, a Web search at 
Google could take 5 minutes to load because Google is not paying the 
extra fee to local cable for priority access. Downloading a song--say 
the download Joe wants to make at iTunes--could cost him more than the 
buck he is paying because iTunes is passing on the cost of paying local 
cable the priority access fee that you could charge if the Commerce 
Committee bill goes forward as written. Joe wants to switch to another 
broadband provider but guess what. In a lot of communities, there is no 
choice. Joe is stuck. This is example No. 2 of how the American people 
are going to get hammered if discrimination is allowed online under 
this legislation.
  Let me offer a third example I have developed as I looked at the 
Commerce Committee bill on overhauling our communications law. The 
third example involves somebody I have been calling Sally Smith. She is 
a young computer programmer. She has a great new algorithm for a Web 
browser that is going to help people access information on the Net 
faster and in a more user-friendly way. In a world with Net neutrality, 
Sally can get her idea all over the tech Web sites that exist across 
the country, and people are going to be able to test it out. If all the 
people out there in the tech world like Sally's idea, word of her 
innovation would spread over the Web, across the land, and across the 
world. Millions of people would be able to download her new Web 
browser. But under the legislation coming from the Commerce Committee, 
Sally Smith could be stymied.
  In addition to what she is already paying for Internet access, Sally 
is going to have to come up with yet more money to pay for priority 
access to the Internet fast lane that she so desperately will want in 
order to test her idea. If she wants her browser to succeed, she is 
going to be forced to fork over new priority access fees because she 
knows no one is going to go looking in the slow lane for a good new Web 
browser.
  I came to the floor--I have already announced my hold on this 
legislation, and I will do everything to block this bill until it 
ensures that the Net in the future will be free of discrimination--
because I wanted to go beyond my original statement to talk about how, 
under this bill, those who own the pipes to the Net, the phone and the 
cable people, could extend their reach under this legislation to put a 
stranglehold on Internet content. According to the business plans, 
plans that have been published in the Wall Street Journal, that is the 
direction in which we are headed.
  Without Net neutrality, the people in these examples I have 
highlighted--a struggling entrepreneur, somebody getting started in 
their new home or apartment, a young computer programmer--are going to 
have real problems getting access to the Web and being able to afford 
the services that are now within their reach.
  The big cable and phone lobbies want the public to think Net 
neutrality is what they call a lose-lose proposition. My view is, no 
Net neutrality will be the real loss for consumers. It will mean 
double-barrel discrimination, discrimination in Internet content, and 
higher prices for the consumers. That is why scores of groups all 
across the country, all across the political spectrum--groups and 
people who, I dare say, disagree almost always--are united behind the 
proposition that the Internet should be free of discrimination.
  We are going to hear a lot about this issue in the days ahead. We are 
going to be told constantly that the phone and cable people will not 
build out the network unless they can sock the consumer and the small 
businesses with higher access charges. The way the system works today, 
where there is a true free marketplace, where the mightiest is treated 
online in the same way someone is treated who doesn't have a lot of 
money, doesn't have clout, that is the best way to grow the network, to 
expand communications opportunities, preserve the free marketplace so 
that people, after they pay that Internet access charge, can go where 
they want, when they want.
  Certainly a lot of our competitors around the world, people with whom 
we will be competing in the marketplace, treat everybody the same 
online. I can't figure out how we can expect to be competitive in the 
global marketplace if we start singling out, as I have described in the 
examples, the small businesses and entrepreneurs for what amounts to 
two-tiered communications services. They are not going to be able to 
compete. I want to make sure that somebody who is in a garage, say, in 
Texas, Oregon, or some other part of the country has the same 
opportunity to compete against people who are dreaming big in countries 
around the world.
  As we discuss this communications issue, there will be a lot of talk 
about how this is a battle between big communications lobbies--say, the 
Verizon company and Google. It is sometimes portrayed as a fight 
between these overdogs, people who have a lot of clout and want to 
divide up the pie and get more for themselves. Verizon and Google can 
take care of themselves. They have deep pockets. They have lots of 
clout. But what I am concerned about are the future Googles, the people 
who are dreaming, the people with the startups, the people with 
innovative, cutting-edge ideas who have been able to go online and, as 
a result, have been successful. That is what the American dream is all 
about. That is what has made the Internet so exciting. It has created 
opportunities for those people who are a long way from major financial 
markets and who don't have deep pockets.

  I do not want to see the American people face double-barrel 
discrimination and higher prices on the Net. I don't want to see them 
not have what they have today, which is a fair shake for all. Equal 
content gets equal treatment. I am going to stay at it with respect to 
this legislation as one Senator until we get true Net neutrality 
principles in the communications bill, until we ensure that the Net is 
free of discrimination.
  The reason Net neutrality has become such a lightning rod in the 
debate about communications is that the Internet is the ball game. The 
1996 telecommunications bill barely touched on the Net. In 2006, the 
Net neutrality debate on the Internet is the ball game because the 
Internet is how we are going to get all our communications in the 
future. It means we are going to look first to the Internet, and 
because it is so central to the future of communications, the Senate 
ought to insist that the Net be kept free of discrimination. We have 
done that in the area of taxation. I and other colleagues have said we 
are not going to allow multiple and discriminatory taxes on the 
Internet. We ought to make darn sure that it is done in this area as 
well so that

[[Page S7549]]

consumers don't get walloped with unnecessarily high prices and 
deteriorating service.
  I will continue the fight to hold up this legislation until, for all 
time, the Net is free of discrimination.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The Senator from Georgia.

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