The FCC reply comment period for network neutrality came to an end yesterday, with hundreds (if not thousands) of last-minute filings from businesses and consumers alike. In fact, the complete docket now runs to nearly 27,000 unique comments, including one from an angry Brazilian who speaks "from a great University of brazil (sic) and we will create chaos if they destroy net's neutrality." The FCC can also "kiss my ass." Another commentator told the agency, "This is rediculous (sic)." Passions, it appear, are running high.

All the major players have submitted comments: Hands Off the Internet, Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the CTIA, etc. Many have also submitted "reply comments" which were due by yesterday. That's not surprising, but what is fascinating to note is how many ordinary people and unlikely organizations have gotten involved in the debate. Even Senators Dorgan and Snowe, who have cosponsored a network neutrality bill, submitted additional comments yesterday—a highly unusual event for an FCC Notice of Inquiry.

The senators want to "demonstrate our continuing interest" in network neutrality, and one of the points they make strongly is that the market will not, in fact, take care of itself because there is no truly competitive market for broadband. "Some believe the market will take care of competition and ensure that those who own the broadband networks won't discriminate," they write in the filing, but add that this "cannot be so when at best consumers have a choice of two providers."

Other bits of government have also provided opinions. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, for one, submitted comments supporting network neutrality and the broader positions of the American Library Association. The DPI believes that in a non-neutral world, "libraries, which do not have deep pockets, will be among the disadvantaged. Failure to retain an open Internet will result in libraries unable to provide their patrons with access to all the content that is available now via the Internet."

Plenty of comments—in fact, these appear to be the vast majority—were submitted over e-mail by ordinary Internet users. Many appear to have used a template, but others chose to go it alone. "The internet is my most important source of news and political opinion," reads one. "Please leave the internet alone."

Such comments exemplify one of the issues with private comments: many are not directly addressing the questions raised by the FCC. Those that are can be ambiguous. "Please leave the internet alone" is the rhetoric used by both sides in the debate, though in one case this means regulation and in the other, no regulation.

Numerous comments also opposed the idea of government-mandated network neutrality, of course. Two weeks ago we covered a paper which argued that a neutral network would require nearly double the peak capacity to operate at the same level of service. The lead authors, Shivkumar Kalyanaraman of Rensselaer Polytechnic and Murat Yuksel of the University of Nevada-Reno, submitted a copy of that paper into the FCC record.