Nearly 650,000 people have left comments on the FCC’s website regarding their proposed Net Neutrality rules, which were proposed roughly 2 months ago. The comments have been open since May 15th, and will be closed on July 15th, likely with over 650,000 comments on the topic, many of which are criticizing the FCC for not taking a strong enough stance to protect consumers. The FCC’s very own Chairman Tom Wheeler even tweeted about the milestone on Friday, reminding people to continue to leave their comments.
We’ve received about 647k #netneutrality comments so far. Keep your input coming — 1st round of comments wraps up July 15.
— Tom Wheeler (@TomWheelerFCC) July 11, 2014
If you still wish to give the FCC your two cents on Net Neutrality, then you just need to add your comment to the heap here and tell them what you think. They are supposedly going to read every single one of these comments, which I don’t necessarily believe or think to be possible considering the flood that the FCC got. They rarely get anyone commenting with most topics only getting comments in the hundreds and very rarely in the thousands. However, people are becoming more aware of the FCC’s comment system and as a result, thousands have also commented on the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable as well.
Such issues regarding Net Neutrality must be addressed as soon as possible because there are certain carriers like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile that threaten to destroy Net Neutrality with their own programs that seek to enrich them and their partners. Sure, some of them are designed to make consumers happier, like T-Mobile’s free music streaming, but they still ultimately pick winners and losers without letting the apps have a level playing field on their network.
After this comment period, the FCC will supposedly reconvene and attempt to readdress these concerns at which point they may come out with new proposed rule making guidelines and then open themselves for another round of comments. This is a very long and protracted process, but people that care about the freedom of the internet should not be discouraged. Hopefully the FCC will realize how much people care and they won’t simply bend to the will of the large ISPs and carriers like their predecessors.
