Reason's Jeff Taylor sorts out the latest court opinions on Voice over Internet Protocol.

To recap, the law says your cable modem is a phone, except when you use it as a phone. Then it is not a phone.

Taylor has a longer piece analyzing the court ruling that forces the FCC to regulate cable companies more like phone companies. Everybody second-guesses Michael Powell when he tries to de-regulate. Why should the court be different?

You can really feel for FCC wonks in the wake of this decision. Here they are with a tidy little competition going on and here come the courts to foul it up. Of course, the lack of any open access mandate for cable guys looks unfair when the phone guys have one. But in the big picture the FCC knows that the phones guys already hold all the best cards, the ace being they already operate as telephone common-carriers.

The phone companies would dearly love for every wired service under the sun to be found to be an Official Telephone Service, with all the heavy regulation that entails. That would mean the future of broadband would be hashed out under phone company house rules.

Read the whole thing.