FCC received a total of 3.7 million comments on net neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission finished accepting comments on its controversial net neutrality proposal last night, and it closed out as by far the most-commented issue in agency history with a total of approximately 3.7 million replies. The commenting period has been open for five months and was even extended for several days due to frequent issues with the agency's website. Contributing to the outpouring of support was a good deal of high-profile attention, including protests from Netflix and Tumblr and a widely shared segment from John Oliver.

By far the most commented issue for the FCC

Net neutrality advocates have been deeply concerned about the new proposal. Though the proposal is meant to protect net neutrality — the idea that all internet traffic, no matter what it is or where it's coming from, should be treated equally — it would actually undermine it, allowing internet providers to create so-called fast lanes that might give an edge to companies that can afford to pay. Advocates would instead like to see the commission reclassify broadband as a utility, thus subjecting it to tighter regulations. Based on an automated analysis of just over 800,000 comments, the Sunlight Foundation believes that two-thirds of initial comments supported that reclassification.

Now that the commenting period has closed, the commission will look through the comments and is supposed to factor their thoughts into a final set of rules for net neutrality. Whatever it decides will likely have dramatic implications for the future of the internet. There's no specific timeline for when we should expect to hear on the agency's decision, but commission chair Tom Wheeler has said that he'd like to put new rules in place as soon as possible to replace the rules that were struck down earlier this year.

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