After more than a decade spent deregulating and removing consumer protections from the phone and cable sector at the behest of industry, the Associated Press proclaims that the new FCC is looking to reverse course. According to the AP, should the FCC suffer a court loss to Comcast (which is challenging the FCC's authority over throttling and traffic management), the agency or Congress will need to act to restore some power to the FCC. That's an uphill climb after the agency ruled phone and cable "information services," and thereby free from most telecom regulation. Still, the agency insists they'll try:The problem of course is that major carriers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have so much influence over both political parties, that any reform granting the FCC additional authority is very likely to fail. As we've noted time and time again, it's nearly impossible to correct some of the problems in the broadband sector (or any other sector, for that matter) until something is done about undue corporate influence over policy. An effort to classify ISPs under "common carrier" is very unlikely to survive running the K Street gauntlet, but it's a battle that will at least prove interesting to watch.