The Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal net neutrality rules on December 14, but the FCC is still making edits to the repeal order and hasn't released the final version. The final order should be similar to the draft released by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai three weeks before the vote, but some changes will be made.

"The goal is to release it as soon as possible," an FCC spokesperson told Ars today. The spokesperson said he can't discuss any changes made to the draft order until a final version is released.

FCC orders are sometimes released weeks after a vote, although orders are also often released the same day or within a few days of a vote. The time is used by FCC staff and the chairman's office to fix any mistakes or omissions and to respond to concerns raised by commissioners. Since net neutrality supporters will file lawsuits in an attempt to overturn the repeal, the final edits could also help Pai's office make the repeal order more legally defensible.

"It's certainly possible that this document will have more significant changes from the circulated draft stage than we've seen in other Pai orders," Policy Director Matt Wood of advocacy group Free Press told Ars. "Free Press and others pointed out not just scores of substantive flaws in the commission's arguments, but a number of procedural errors and notice fouls that frankly cannot be fixed with a post-vote band-aid. But that doesn't mean they aren't busily trying to apply those band-aids as we speak."

Wood noted that it isn't unusual for orders to come out a few weeks after votes, and that the end-of-year holidays may have slowed this one down even more. Still, the absence of a final order nearly three weeks after the vote "seems a little more remarkable [because] Chairman Pai has gone so far out of his way to praise himself for transparency, speed, and quantity in his orders—apparently in the belief that he gets a gold star for releasing as many decisions as possible, as fast as possible, no matter how bad they are for the public," Wood said.

Lawsuits, actual repeal must wait for publication

Because the final order isn't available, groups that want to overturn the repeal can't file lawsuits against the FCC. This gives net neutrality supporters more time to prepare initial court complaints.

We also don't yet know exactly when net neutrality rules will officially be taken off the books. The repeal will take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, and Federal Register publication may not happen immediately after the order is made public on the FCC website. In 2015, the FCC voted to impose the current net neutrality rules on February 26, made the final order public on March 12, and got them into the Federal Register on April 13, allowing the rules to take effect on June 12. A similar timeline will unfold after Pai's FCC releases its repeal.

At least one change to the repeal order was made at the request of the FCC's chief technology officer, Eric Burger (not to be confused with Ars Technica's Eric Berger). Burger noted in an internal FCC email that Pai's proposal would allow ISPs to block legal Internet content as long as they disclose the blocking, Politico reported before the vote. (The repeal will allow ISPs to block, throttle, and charge for paid prioritization as long as they follow transparency rules that require disclosure about network practices.)

An FCC official told Politico that Burger's concerns were addressed in an edit to Pai's proposal. But it's not clear what change could have been made to address that concern, given that the FCC voted to eliminate the prohibition on blocking.

Another change was made at the request of Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, who said that the commission should not invoke its authority from Section 218 or Title III of the Communications Act to enforce the transparency requirements. O'Rielly said that Section 257 of the Communications Act provided enough authority to require ISPs to be transparent about network management practices.

O'Rielly was concerned that Section 218 has "customarily [been] used to implement traditional rate-making authority over common carriers." He said he wants the provision "removed from the books once and for all."

Pai has repeatedly touted his own transparency and changed the FCC's rulemaking process by releasing draft orders before votes, something previous chairs had not done. He also quickly released the final text of other decisions made by the commission at that December 14 meeting, with two being released the same day as the vote and another four days later.

Pai's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that started the repeal process in May was released five days after the FCC vote. But there's more at stake with edits to the final document, as this is the one that will be the centerpiece of a future court battle.

While the 2015 order to impose net neutrality rules was released 14 days after the vote, a 2010 net neutrality order was released just two days after being voted on.