This article does a great job of explaining the impact of net neutrality on gaming. I’d like to add a few comments. First, it’s important to note that the court decision is only about the F.C.C.’s current powers and does not reflect a position about net neutrality itself. Basically, the court is saying that if the F.C.C. wants to control behavior like Comcast’s then it needs to get permission from Congress first. Second, although this isn’t *good* for net neutrality proponents (of which I’m one) it isn’t necessarily all that bad. This decision may spur Congress into action on reviewing F.C.C.’s mandate and explicitly giving them the power to regulate internet access to the extent that they already regulate all other electronic communications (radio, TV, satellite, cable). Once Congress acted then the F.C.C. would no longer have to expend so much energy in “proving” that they can regulate ISPs and instead could focus on their mandate. Third, net neutrality is not as clearly defined by politics as some would have you believe. The F.C.C.’s action against Comcast was taken during the Bush presidency. The current administration has certainly ramped up their support of net neutrality but this is by no means a (R) v. (D) issue. Personally, as a Comcast customer I have serious concerns about their business practices and am going to start investigating my options. They’ve already shown their willingness to treat data packets differently based on their perceived content or use. Although at this point we only know about their blocking of bittorrent traffic (which they vehemently denied), I have no confidence that they will stop there. What would prevent Comcast from slowing down my Xbox 360 data to the point that I cannot stream a movie through Xbox Live? If Comcast is offering the same movie through their Pay-Per-View service wouldn’t it be to their benefit to degrade my internet speed to the point that I instead use Comcast’s PPV service? Not only that but a 11GB movie from Xbox Live (“District 9” was just over that size) counts toward my 250GB monthly limit with Comcast and imposes a limit on my movie viewing ability. If I instead used Comcast’s PPV service then it doesn’t count against my monthly limit. That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. Comcast’s efforts to buy NBC Universal makes this a scarier proposition. Would anything prevent Comcast from making access to CNN online slower than NBC news online? In a perfect world we could rely on ISPs to act appropriately and in the best interest of their customers but clearly we cannot; it’s not the fault of the regulators but instead the fault of those “bad” ISPs that made regulation a necessity in the first place.