Oh how nice of Tom Wheeler to play the good-guy now. It took a lot of public outcry for him to change his tune about Net Neutrality.
Oh how nice of Tom Wheeler to play the good-guy now. It took a lot of public outcry for him to change his tune about Net Neutrality.
That's wrong. He was for net neutrality from day one at the FCC.
You are probably thinking of the first net neutrality rule he proposed, which would have allowed for paid fast lanes, and interpreting that as somehow not being for net neutrality.
When he proposed that rule that was about the strongest net neutrality rule possible without reclassifying ISPs as common carriers. Reclassification was a very risky approach, with probably at least an order of magnitude more chance of not surviving. He did state that he was open to that approach, if the comments on the first proposal indicated that there was enough support for reclassification.
That was the second; the first he got passed did not, but it was struck down by the courts for exceeding the power the FCC had without Title II reclassification. The draft of the replacement might have allowed paid prioritization (it was clearly not intended to, but it was limited because it attempted to stay within the boundaries of what would pass muster without Title II reclassification.) The final replacement order opted for Title reclassification, and was not only stronger than the draft, but stronger in many ways that the 2010 order it replaced.
Wheeler was always on the side of net neutrality, and in fact his actions in favor of it are one of the main reasons the issue became well known.
Tom Wheeler was the driving force behind all of the FCC net neutrality efforts, including early case-by-case actions, the 2010 Open Internet Order and the 2015 Open Internet Order. The idea that he was somehow an opponent of net neutrality mostly comes from ab unfair set of hit pieces in popular outlets (including, notably, Jon Oliver's Last Week Tonight) based around some groups (legitimate) concerns that the first public draft of the 2015 order (written to address the court decision striking down the 2010 order) was an insufficiently strong instrument.