Tom Wheeler is picking a fight with the industry that he used to represent.

The Federal Communications Commission chairman, former head of the biggest cable and wireless lobbying associations, is about to issue "the strongest open Internet protections ever proposed by the FCC," and they're going to apply both to fixed Internet service and mobile broadband, he wrote today in an opinion piece in Wired.

We already knew that was likely, but Wheeler further explained why he came to support bringing broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, which was passed in 1934 to apply strict common carrier rules to the telephone industry. A history buff, Wheeler wrote, "The Internet wouldn’t have emerged as it did, for instance, if the FCC hadn’t mandated open access for network equipment in the late 1960s. Before then, AT&T prohibited anyone from attaching non-AT&T equipment to the network. The modems that enabled the internet were usable only because the FCC required the network to be open."

In the 1980s, Wheeler "learned the hard way" the importance of open networks, because cable television operators held the power to harm startups. This came after Wheeler's tenure representing the cable industry as CEO of the National Cable Television Association from 1979 to 1984. (He would later be CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association from 1992 to 2004.)

Wheeler wrote today:

In the mid-1980s I was president of a startup, NABU: The Home Computer Network. My company was using new technology to deliver high-speed data to home computers over cable television lines. Across town Steve Case was starting what became AOL. NABU was delivering service at the then-blazing speed of 1.5 megabits per second—hundreds of times faster than Case’s company. “We used to worry about you a lot,” Case told me years later. But NABU went broke while AOL became very successful. Why that is highlights the fundamental problem with allowing networks to act as gatekeepers. While delivering better service, NABU had to depend on cable television operators granting access to their systems. Steve Case was not only a brilliant entrepreneur, but he also had access to an unlimited number of customers nationwide who only had to attach a modem to their phone line to receive his service. The phone network was open whereas the cable networks were closed. End of story.

Yet last year, Wheeler proposed new open Internet (aka "net neutrality") rules that used weaker authority than the FCC's Title II powers. The rules would have prevented blocking but allowed Internet service providers to charge Web services for priority access to consumers.

"Originally, I believed that the FCC could assure Internet openness through a determination of 'commercial reasonableness' under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996," Wheeler wrote. "While a recent court decision seemed to draw a roadmap for using this approach, I became concerned that this relatively new concept might, down the road, be interpreted to mean what is reasonable for commercial interests, not consumers. That is why I am proposing that the FCC use its Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections."

The rules Wheeler is proposing to his colleagues this week "will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services," he wrote. They will also "fully apply" to mobile broadband "for the first time ever." Today, Title II is used to regulate cellular voice but not data.

But if you were hoping for Wheeler to use Title II powers that go far beyond net neutrality, think again.

"To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks," Wheeler wrote. "For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling. Over the last 21 years, the wireless industry has invested almost $300 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can encourage investment and competition."

Our own Peter Bright argued that the broadband industry needs last-mile unbundling. That would force companies like Comcast to sell access to their wires, allowing new Internet service providers to emerge without having to build their own infrastructure. Without that, the lack of competition that Wheeler has criticized won't be fixed easily. But net neutrality rules would require Internet providers to treat all traffic fairly, and other provisions of Title II could give consumers a better process for complaining about unfair rates and practices. There could also be a complaint process that Netflix and other online providers could use to protest network interconnection charges.

Even though Wheeler isn't proposing the strongest possible Title II rules, Internet providers are furious and promise lawsuits. While the FCC will vote on Wheeler's net neutrality plan on February 26, the fight he is picking against his former clients is far from over.