FCC to Host Open Internet Roundtables and Enhance Reviewability of Open Internet Comments

The FCC recently announced that it will be hosting a series of Open Internet Roundtables to discuss how the Commission should approach protecting and promoting Internet openness. The Commission plans to host a series of six roundtables that will focus on issues including: policy approaches, mobile broadband, enforcement options, technology, economics and legal implications of the proposed Open Internet rules (GN Docket No. 14-28). Each of the roundtables will be open to the public and streamed live on the FCC’s website. The sessions are slated to begin in mid-September and run until early October. The FCC has posted background information regarding its first session, entitled Policy Approaches to Ensure an Open Internet,” which will be held on September 16th.

To make the voluminous comments filed at the FCC in the Open Internet proceeding more accessible to and searchable by analysts, journalists, researchers and the general public, the FCC has posted them as XML files, a common coding or markup” language that is readable by both people and machines, to FCC​.gov. The FCC invites the press and the public to use the data to find trends and build visualizations so that the public and the FCC can discuss and learn from the comments” the Commission received (per Gigi B. Sohn, FCC’s Special Counsel for External Affairs). The files include comments submitted through the Commission’s online Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) as well as those submitted through openinternet@​fcc.​gov, a special inbox set up specifically for the Open Internet proceeding.

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Open Internet Roundtable Public Notice GN Docket No. 14-28 Public Notice