Whew. So. Today, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced in a post at Wired that he is taking that step—a step that, only a year ago, seemed politically unfeasible.

“I am proposing that the FCC use its Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections,” he wrote:

Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC. These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile broadband.

“Getting Title II back went from impossible to politically feasible in less than 12 months—which is a super fast pace by D.C. standards,” said Matt Wood, the policy director for net-neutrality advocacy group Free Press in an email to me.

This is a staggering turn. When I last wrote about the topic in mid-May, it seemed the FCC would permit a limited fast and slow lane scheme. Then the winds began to shift. In June, John Oliver exhorted his viewers to write to the FCC in defense of net neutrality, and they did so in droves, crashing the agency’s servers. By the fall, more than 4 million people had submitted public comments on the topic, overwhelmingly in support of stronger rules to protect net neutrality.

Then, in November, President Obama announced that he, too, supported Title II reclassification. Advocates cautioned that his support was important—it showed that the administration was prepared to defend the agency in court—but that it ensured nothing. The FCC is an independent body, and its chairman (who was appointed by Obama) was an old lobbyist for the cable industry.

Reports trickled out: Yes, the agency was seriously considering Title II reclassification. The New York Times, with the tepid assurance befitting the paper of record, reported Monday that the FCC was “expected to propose regulating Internet service as a utility.” But it sourced its story to “industry analysts, lobbyists, and former FCC staff members.”

But now there is today’s promise, from the FCC chair, that cable industry lobbyist himself: that the Internet should be regulated as the landline phone system was. That Internet service is a utility. “It was a combination of everything: good legal arguments coupled with popular and political support—and public outcry any time it looked like the FCC hadn't quite gotten the message yet,” Wood told me.

“The Obama statement on Title II on November 10th wasn't the beginning of a process, it was sort of the culmination of one. And Chairman Wheeler deserves tons of credit for taking this next step,” he added.

Of course, the particulars here are in the details, and we won’t know those until the full FCC report comes out later this month.* What will likely follow is a lawsuit between major cable companies and the FCC—but a lawsuit was going to follow no matter what, as the cable industry has always fought the FCC’s attempts to ensure net neutrality.