The Nuts and Bolts of Network Neutrality A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Federal Communications Commission rules that required Internet service providers to treat all traffic equally. The so-called network neutrality rules were championed by Internet companies worried that the carriers could start charging for preferential treatment to information carried on their networks. Here is a look at the basic questions regarding this debate, starting with a definition: What is net neutrality? Net Neutrality is a concept that says the Internet should be free and open: users should have unfettered access to any service or application on the Internet, and the company operating the pipes that connect a user to the Internet cannot discriminate against or block any content, just as a phone company has to transmit a call that one phone user makes to another. So the court said net neutrality is bad? The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the F.C.C. cannot subject companies that provide Internet service to the same type of regulation that the agency imposes on phone companies. It cited the F.C.C."s own decision in 2002 that Internet service was not a telecommunications service - like telephone or telegraph - but an information service, a classification that limits the F.C.C."s authority. So the F.C.C. can't regulate the Internet? It can, just not in the manner that it sought to do so. The appeals court said telecommunications laws give the F.C.C. broad power to make rules governing the treatment of Internet traffic by broadband providers, because Congress has directed the agency to promote innovation and the growth of the Internet. Then what is at stake? Who opposes the F.C.C."s regulation of the Internet and why? Verizon challenged the rules, saying the F.C.C. had overstepped its authority. Verizon and other Internet service providers say that they should be able to set up specialized services, offering creators of Internet content the ability to pay to move their content through the pipes and to consumers more quickly. The F.C.C., however, has said those efforts could result in only the richest companies having easy access to consumers, blocking small start-ups - perhaps the next Google or Facebook - from getting a toehold in cyberspace. What happens now? The F.C.C. has a few options. It can appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. It can try to rewrite its rules to prevent discrimination or blocking in a way that doesn't require Internet service providers to provide equal access for everyone for free. Or it could overturn itself, and reclassify broadband as a utilitylike service, subject to strict regulation. Why can't the F.C.C. decide what it wants? The F.C.C. exempted Internet service from utilitylike regulation in 2002, when Michael Powell, a Republican appointee, was chairman. The F.C.C."s net neutrality rules were enacted in 2010, under Chairman Julius Genachowski, a law school chum of President Obama, who made net neutrality a campaign issue. Now, the decision on how to proceed is up to Tom Wheeler, the new chairman, who was appointed by Mr. Obama but who has worked as a lobbyist for the cable industry and wireless phone companies. Mr. Wheeler has said he supports an open Internet, but he also has expressed willingness to allow companies to experiment with new ways of delivering Internet service.