The Wall Street Journal says that the FCC will move to reclassify broadband services to give them a greater ability to regulate in that space, protecting their intentions to reinforce net neutrality and transform broadband access for the 21st century. . . but there is still plenty of time for them to screw it up.

In early April, a federal court stripped the FCC of its power to regulate the Internet. Now it seems the Obama administration is considering doing nothing in response, giving power over our Internet to the greedy phone and cable companies. To understand how we got to this infuriating juncture we need a bit of a [...]

Back in 2002, the Bush administration gave the phone and cable companies what they wanted and classified broadband outside the normal regulatory framework for two-way communications networks like phones. Fast forward to 2009, when the FCC came down on Comcast for blocking legal traffic on their networks. An appeals court overtuned the lawsuit, basically saying the FCC has no legal standing to regulate the Internet. Which, on its face, is crazy.

All the FCC needs to do to be able to regulate the Internet again is simply reverse Bush’s mistake. And indeed, an earlier Supreme Court ruling on Bush’s original move confirms this – the Court essentially said the FCC is allowed to reclassify services.

To reclassify, the FCC needs to hold a vote of its five member board. And the votes are there – Obama appointee Chairman Genachowski has been a strong supporter of net neutrality and its assumed the other two Democratic chairman would vote with him.

So, will the Chairman and FCC do it? So far, we don’t know.

Tomorrow at 2:30 pm, the Senate Commerce Committee will meet to discuss the administration’s National Broadband Plan. However, given the court ruling last week that the FCC can’t regulate the Internet under its current classification, the focus will be on net neutrality.