WASHINGTON — FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday was the proudest day in his public-policy career.

It certainly received the most attention. In a packed room of media, corporate representatives, Internet policy advocates and even Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, the FCC on Thursday passed new rules meant to ensure net neutrality principles would be the law of the land.

As Wheeler struck his gavel on the 3-2 vote, the room burst into applause.

But as much as Wheeler would love to ride off into the sunset, an industry veteran like him knows that this is just another battle in a war that will continue to be fought. Here are a few reasons why you'll be hearing about net neutrality for years to come.

The rules

The new rules are not a solution but rather a patch, using old legislation in a way that looks to address a current need. Sometimes patches become permanent. Other times they're removed for a more permanent fix. Time will tell which one this becomes.

The next battle will be in court. Lawsuits from the ISPs affected by the rules will almost inevitably follow, as alluded to by Republican FCC commissioners and politicians as well as the companies themselves. The last two times the FCC has gone to court over its Internet regulations, the rules have been thrown out.

The public and the companies involved have not yet seen the actual rules — just a primer from the FCC — so it could be weeks before the minutiae of the rules are known.

But rest assured just about everyone is expecting a court battle. Comcast said in a statement that the ruling will "lead to years of litigation and regulatory uncertainty."

The FCC thinks so, too.

.@TomWheelerFCC has "great confidence" #NetNeutrality rules will hold up in court. — dominic rushe (@dominicru) February 26, 2015

The government

There's also the question of where the FCC and Congress are headed.

The regulator is a panel of five commissioners appointed by the president. If a Republican president wins the 2016 election, he or she will inevitably appoint a GOP-friendly majority to the panel. That panel could then revisit the question of net neutrality rules.

Congress has also started paying attention. Here's where the long-term impact of Thursday's vote could reside.

While net neutrality can seem like an extremely divisive subject, there's a surprising amount of common ground. Most everyone agrees on the central aspects: no blocking, no throttling or paid prioritization. Even the ISPs at least publicly agree to those principles. Thursday's vote accomplishes those things by applying a far more aggressive piece of legislation than many deem necessary.

This is where Congress comes in. There is almost no disagreement that a new piece of legislation tailored to the Internet would be the best way to enforce net neutrality. Many critics have pointed out that the rule being used to achieve net neutrality by the FCC has its roots in the 1930s.

Republicans had been pushing to get legislation considered before the FCC vote, but Democrats held that up. Now, with the stringent new rules in place, there could be enough urgency to find a bipartisan solution.

Of course that's unlikely. The current Congress has been gridlocked even on subjects that have common ground. Still, if legislation does somehow get pushed through, the FCC vote may end up fading into memory as an important footnote that pushed elected officials to finally come up with a real solution.

The future

The unknown future of the Internet leaves no shortage of questions for net neutrality.

Wheeler noted that there is plenty of uncertainty in where the Internet is headed. In the pre-smartphone age, it would have been hard to foresee a future where wireless played such a big role. Now, for the first time, that is covered by net neutrality regulation.

Tom Wheeler, chairman of the FCC, listens during an open meeting to vote on internet regulations in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015. Image: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Another burgeoning area comes in the way networks exchange data — as well as how content providers connect with those networks, known as interconnection or peering — and the business relationships that have begun to evolve there. The initial fact sheet from the FCC said that the regulator sought some power to oversee those relationships.

There is also an important unanswered question about parts of rules that don't apply to the ISPs. In reclassifying broadband Internet, broadband providers would be subject to aggressive regulation of things like how much the companies charge customers or are taxed. The FCC has said many of these parts of the legislation will be explicitly listed in the rules as not applying.

This provides some security for ISPs, but the rules still loom. A future FCC commission could take the necessary steps to remove those restrictions, although Wheeler pointed out that other uses of such exemptions have remained through numerous commissions.

Still, it is yet another moving part that will remain in play for years to come.