Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation which promotes innovation and the expansion of the digital economy.

Every day, each and every American grows increasingly reliant on the Internet. We use it at work, at home at school, and on the go. The Internet has changed the way we communicate, the way we share and speak, and it is transforming our economy.

As the Internet becomes increasingly important to American consumers, businesses and innovators, Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, are increasingly imposing caps on the amount of data that consumers may move over the Net. Unfortunately, because of a lack of competition in Internet broadband services, the imposition of data caps raises a public policy concern. Data caps are appropriate if they are carefully constructed to manage network congestion but as the New York Times has editorialized, they ``should not just be a way for Internet providers to extract monopoly rents.'' The imposition of data caps also risks undermining online competition and innovation as the market for digital goods and services expands.

In order to empower consumers to better manage their data usage and promote online innovation, I am sponsoring the Data Cap Integrity Act. This bill will give consumers the tools they need to manage their own data usage, institute industry-wide data measurement accuracy standards for ISPs, and impose disciplines to ensure that ISPs' data caps are truly designed to manage network congestion.

The Data Measurement Integrity Act requires the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, to establish standards for how ISPs measure data and make certain that data caps are designed to manage network congestion rather than monetize data in ways that undermine online innovation. Furthermore, this bill ensures that consumers are provided tools to manage their data consumption and that ISPs cannot for purposes of measuring data, discriminate against any content.

Internet use is central to our lives and to our economy. Future innovation will undoubtedly require consumers to use more and more data, data caps should not impede this innovation and the jobs it creates.

I look forward to working with my colleagues and stakeholders to discuss this legislation, consider improvements to it, and work toward its adoption into law.

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