Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, one of the few FCC commissioners who it seems didn't jump directly to lobbying for broadband ISPs, argues in a new blog post (via Ars Technica) that the FCC should rule that ISPs are common carriers. Anything less, Copps argues, will result in a future of "toll-booths, gatekeepers and preferential carriage" where ISPs do as they will and the FCC lacks the full authority to protect consumers from bad ideas deployed repercussion-free in the nation's minimally-competitive broadband markets.

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Saying that the solution is simple is not the same as saying it is easy. No matter what course the Commission chooses, powerful forces will contest it. If the Commission, instead of reclassifying broadband as what it is, attempts some new and novel reading of the statute, it is just inviting more years of detour and delay. And every month of delay only gives the big telephone and cable companies more time and opportunity to make the Internet…theirs.

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