• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 12, 2013

Internet service providers that engage in controversial usage-based billing could face a host of new regulations, if a bill introduced on Tuesday by Senate Commerce Committee head Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is enacted.

The Consumer Choice in Online Video Act requires ISPs using pay-per-byte billing to give subscribers detailed information about their consumption. For instance, one provision mandates that carriers tell customers midway through their billing cycles how much data they can still use without going over their limits, according to a draft of the proposal provided to MediaPost. The bill also provides that carriers can only use data usage monitoring systems that have been certified by the Federal Communications Commission.

Rockefeller's proposal also contains a provision prohibiting carriers from using metered billing plans in a way that could promote their own services at the expense of competitors'. That provision appears aimed at addressing the controversy that erupted last year, when Comcast unveiled a service that allows people who subscribe to Xfinity Internet and Xfinity Digital Video to watch TV on demand on their Xbox 360 consoles. Data streamed to the Xbox through that program doesn't count against users' monthly data cap -- which places services like Netflix and Hulu at a disadvantage.

Those are only a few parts of the Consumer Choice in Online Video Act, a sweeping proposal aimed at encouraging the growth of online video. Among other provisions that could boost Internet video, the bill prohibits ISPs from degrading online video offered by competitors.

Additionally, the measure mandates that ISPs include information about their average actual upload and download  speeds, as well as their traffic management practices, before selling consumers broadband subscriptions. That term appears to address a persistent complaint that ISPs advertise the speeds they are capable of delivering under optimal circumstances, but don't tell consumers how fast they will actually be able to surf the Web.

Consumer groups Free Press and Public Knowledge praised the bill on Tuesday. “The bill would help online video companies like Netflix compete alongside traditional pay-TV providers and would keep broadband Internet service providers from trying to squelch those alternatives,” Free Press said in a statement.