The U.S. Federal Communication Commission decided it would continue to accept comments on its Open Internet rules until Sept. 15, which gives the public a little more time to submit their opinion on whether or not the new proposed framework does enough to protect a free and open Internet.

This is not the first time the FCC has extended a comment deadline for this particular issue. On July 15, the initial comments period was supposed to end, but after a surge in comments right as the deadline arrived, the agency's site crashed and the FCC decided to extend that deadline to July 18.

But July 18 was only the deadline for initial comments. A second round of what's called "reply-comments," or comments that piggyback off of initial comments, either as follow-up or in disagreement, was supposed to end on Sept. 10. Extending the deadline five days might not seem like much, but the extra three days in the middle of July allowed for procrastinators to make their voices heard, and the new reply-comment extension is likely to do the same.

The FCC's current Open Internet Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is the most publically commented-on policy initiative of its kind in the history of the FCC.

That's because the FCC has put forth a regulatory structure that allows Internet service providers to give content companies that pay them preferential treatment, as long as it's not commercially unreasonable. This change from the relatively Net Neutrality-friendly 2010 Open Internet rules have created a surge in protest, resistance and calls for the FCC to regulate ISPs (like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and AT&T) more strongly.

In fact, a recent analysis of the first round of comments from Quid (for the Knight Foundation and NPR) found that the vast majority of comments were "pro" Net Neutrality and that there were so few handwritten, unique "anti" Net Neutrality comments that they didn't even show up on its analysis infographic.

Having garnered over 1.1 million initial comments on its submission site, the FCC is still open to emailed comments at openinternet@fcc.gov and reply-comments on the website.

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