Comcast Trips Over Wheeler Nixon-to-China Moment as FCC Boss

Tom Wheeler came to the Federal Communications Commission in 2013 with a resume featuring stints as the top lobbyist in Washington for both the cable and wireless industries. Consumer advocates weren’t amused. Now, almost two years later, FCC Chairman Wheeler is confounding his former allies and winning praise from public interest groups. He recently pushed for strong net-neutrality rules, and scrutiny by FCC staff helped push Comcast to abandon its yearlong effort to buy Time Warner Cable. “It’s like Nixon going to China,” said Gene Kimmelman, president of the Washington-based policy group Public Knowledge, which opposes the Comcast merger. “He’s used his industry background not to favor his old friends in industry but to take that knowledge and apply it towards strong public interest protections.”

With the cable industry facing its stiffest challenge yet from Internet-based video providers such as Netflix, a central issue for the agency is how to promote innovation as well as protect competition, according to a person familiar with the Comcast case. The FCC’s net neutrality decision and its resistance to the Comcast deal both recognize that the FCC needs to keep up with a world that is changing rapidly. “This is exactly why I thought he was good for the job,” said Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation in Washington. “He’s been around the block, he’s made his money” and he knows the issues, he said.