By Peter Nowak, CBCnews.ca

OTTAWA - After an inauspicious start to the day, the net neutrality rally turned out to be a success in the eyes of organizers and protestors. About 300 showed up (only about 30 were employees of rally organizer Teksavvy) despite some organizational problems, which included the event being rescheduled three times.

Several speakers made reference to the rally being "the first step," promising more public action. A follow-up rally in Toronto this summer - ahead of a CRTC ruling on traffic throttling due in the fall - looks very likely, according to the scuttlebutt.

The surprise of the day was the announcement by the NDP that it will introduce a net neutrality bill to the House of Commons tomorrow. The Liberals are thus far non-commital, but it will be interesting to see if they change their minds to make poltical hay from the groundswell of public support around the neutrality issue.

It will be equally as interesting to see just how mainstream this issue can go.

(CBCnews.ca's Peter Nowak is in Ottawa for Tuesday's net neutrality rally. At issue are the actions of ISPs that have been slowing down the internet speeds of customers using certain applications, such as peer-to-peer software used for file sharing.)