The House of Representatives voted Friday to overturn net neutrality rules created by the FCC in December.

The vote, which fell mostly along partisan lines with 234 Republicans and 6 Democrats voting yes, and 177 Democrats and 2 Republicans voting no. The short bill relies on Congress's authority to override regulatory agencies, rather than revoking funding for the FCC.

The vote is largely symbolic, however, because President Obama has promised to veto any legislation reversing the rules. Open internet rules were part of Obama's platform, and many of his supporters have criticized the new rules for not being strong enough. But there remains a possibility a similar provision could be instated as a "rider" in the funding bill that must be passed before the end of the day if a government shutdown is to be averted.

The FCC's net neutrality rules prohibit cable, fiber and DSL broadband companies from blocking websites, allow users to use the software and devices of their choice, and require companies to be transparent if they use traffic-management software. Mobile-internet companies would have to abide by a lesser standard, but are prohibited from blocking VOIP applications like Skype or video services like YouTube or Netflix that compete with their own offerings.

The rules, which have not yet gone into effect, satisfied few – as the FCC attempted to find a middle ground that would be acceptable to all, including House Republicans. The rules clearly failed on that latter account.

Republicans say the FCC's rules would stifle broadband investment and amount to an unprecedented regulation of the internet, though the rules are largely the same as the ones put into effect by the Bush administration's FCC in 2005. Those rules were thrown out in court in 2010, on the grounds the FCC hadn't built them on proper legal authority.

The head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Fred Upton (R-Michigan), however, called the new rules a "brazen power grab," in an editorial in The Hill.

"These new regulations will cause more harm than good by stifling innovation, investments, and jobs," Upton said. "It will harm the network core of the internet, and therefore threaten the architecture that web providers on the edge depend on."

In a press release after the vote, congressional Democrats including Henry Waxman, Anna Eshoo (both D-California) and Mike Doyle (D-Pennsylvania) called it a "bad bill."

"Internet access providers have always lived with basic rules of the road, and 'no blocking' was chief among them," Doyle wrote. "Those basic rules of the road are what turned the internet into the economic engine it is today. Now some broadband providers don't want to play by those rules. They want the right to block what you get to see. I don't want to live in a country where it's legal to block websites like it is in oppressive regimes like Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and Sudan."

The rules have also been challenged in court by mobile providers Verizon and MetroPCS. Those challenges were deemed premature by a judge, who said the companies must wait until the rules are published in the Federal Register.

Photo: The incoming freshman class of Congress in 2010. (TalkMediaNews)

See Also:- Court Tosses Net Neutrality Challenges – For Now