How FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Became a Net Neutrality Champion

When Tom Wheeler was tapped by President Barack Obama to lead the Federal Communications Commission in 2013, many public interest advocates were skeptical, if not downright hostile, toward his appointment, because of his lengthy background as a top lobbyist for the cable industry, from 1979 to 1984, and the wireless industry, from 1992 to 2004. But over the next three years, Chairman Wheeler won over the public interest community, and infuriated his former clients in the cable and wireless industries, by successfully spearheading the most pro-consumer telecom policy reforms in a generation, including the agency’s landmark policy protecting network neutrality, and agency rules protecting consumers from broadband industry privacy abuses.

“Tom Wheeler has been—by far—the best FCC Chairman in the 45 years I have practiced communications law,” said Andrew Schwartzman, Benton Senior Counselor at the Public Interest Communications Law Project at Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Public Representation.