UPDATE: The FCC has posted a fact sheet to help consumers understand Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal.

There’s some big regulatory news today, as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has announced plans to “enforce open internet protections.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler revealed today a proposal to reclassify the internet as a utility. Wheeler says that the rules that he’s proposing will ban paid prioritization as well as blocking and throttling content and services that are legal. He goes on to say that he wants these rules to fully apply to mobile broadband.

Wheeler’s announcement is pretty huge for net neutrality. The proposal aims to prevent companies from allowing companies to pay to have their content or service work faster than their competitors and to ban ISPs from blocking or throttling services that they don’t like. The good news is that Wheeler wants these rules to apply to mobile users too, so carriers won’t be able prioritize or block content either. Now we just have to wait and see how this proposal fares as it works its way through the U.S. government.