On Feb. 26, the Federal Communications Commission made a decision more than a year in the making: Net neutrality is again the order of the day for the Internet.

However, whether it remains that way is a question that may also take many more months to solve.

As expected, the commission voted 3-2 along party lines to reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service under Title II of the 1996 Communications Act. Democrats Tom Wheeler, Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn voted yes, while Republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly voted no.

The decision, in layman's terms, relies on three "bright line rules" to ensure net neutrality:

  • No blocking by broadband providers to content and services
  • No throttling or slowing down of traffic on the Internet
  • No paid prioritization of content by broadband providers

While a popular statement in the lead-up to the vote was to analogize Title II regulations to those that public utilities are subject to, FCC counsel said prior to the vote that networks and broadband providers would not be subject to the taxes and fees that telephone providers are. The assurances were likely made in response to Pai, O'Rielly, the biggest ISPs and telecom lobbying organizations, who say that Title II will stifle innovation and increase prices for consumers.

Pai was not as convinced during the commission's hearing, saying, "Every FCC chairman, Republican and Democrat, has let the Internet grow free of utility-style regulation ... but today, the FCC abandons those policies." The Kansas native and former Verizon lawyer also made the argument that Title II would make it too easy to levy additional taxes and lead to unintended consequences.

Wheeler tipped his hand about the ruling and its likely vote outcome early in February when he wrote a piece for Wired titled, "This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality" In it, he wrote, "I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open Internet protections ever proposed by the FCC."

The necessity for the FCC to write new rules was precipitated by a January 2014 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that said the commission overstepped its regulatory authority according to the Communications Act in its 2010 Open Internet Order.

In that order by the commission, the panel led by Wheeler's predecessor, Julius Genachowski, exempted broadband providers from being treated as common carriers under the Telecommunications Act. Today's decision does classify them as such, and subjects broadband companies to those stricter regulations.

At one point in the last year, ensuring net neutrality under Title II seemed prohibitively unlikely. On May 15, 2014, the Commission — voting along the same party lines as the Feb. 26 vote approved taking up a "fast lanes" proposal from Wheeler to allow service providers to charge websites and services for faster speeds.

The outcry from various consumer advocacy groups and websites was swift, prompting an unprecedented number of comments on the FCC's website. That number was undoubtedly boosted by a widely-watched commentary by HBO's John Oliver on net neutrality that urged viewers to comment on the commission's website and a video statement last November by President Barack Obama recommending Title II regulation.

While today's ruling comes as a victory for many in the tech world, it by no means is the end of the net neutrality fight. If there have been any constants in the net neutrality battle, they have been that legal action is not far away and that the order of the day will probably change.

Some on Capitol Hill are already convinced that Wheeler's new Title II rules will be struck down in court, just as Genachowski's Open Internet Order was.

"It's not going to work. It is going to be tested in court, and it's going to fail in court,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) told the Los Angeles Times. As a possible solution that prevents both Title II regulation and prolonged court proceedings while maintaining net neutrality, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, of which Barton chairs, proposed legislation Feb. 25 that would uphold net neutrality while prohibiting treating broadband under Title II.

And even if the new rules are not heard by the courts in the next two years, there remains a possibility that if Congress does not act on broadband laws, a new Republican president, upon inauguration in 2017, could appoint a new FCC chair to overturn the rules.

For now, the status of net neutrality is more concrete than it has been at any point in nearly 14 months. But with legal challenges inevitable, and congressional action possible, it's not yet a certainty.