How FCC chair took control of Internet

It was August 2014 when Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler was coming -- quietly -- to the conclusion that he was going to have to turn on the industries that launched his career in Washington.

On Feb 5, he is expected to present to the FCC a set of rules that would treat broadband providers like utilities, effectively denying them the right to charge companies a premium for faster access to consumers and holding them accountable for any attempt to secretly impede the flow of data. When the FCC finally approves them -- a vote is scheduled for late February -- it will mark the most significant rewrite of the rules of the road for the Internet in more than a dozen years and affect the competitive playing field for generations to come. The origin of Wheeler’s dramatic pivot? An intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people -- him and President Barack Obama. “We [knew] that Tom Wheeler was going to make the decision on this,” said Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, a liberal public interest group. “He was the guy with the most influence over the details, and the question becomes who has the most influence over him, and that is President Obama.”