I'm not really sure what distinction you're trying to create with the term "telecommunications service provider" versus "telecommunications provider" and "information service." The term "telecommunications service provider" doesn't appear at all in the D.C. Circuit's opinion.

Moreover, the phrase "common carrier" is more or less coextensive with Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934, which creates a heavy regulatory oversight regime. I'm not sure how the FCC could classify ISPs as common carriers and not bring them under the purview of Title II.

While Universal Service was not created in the 1996 Act, it is definitely an animating principle of the Act, because the Act expands the program. However, it doesn't go so far as to extend it to ISPs. Universal service contributions aren't totally coextensive with telecommunications provider versus information service classification, but are almost so. Anyone that provides something similar to voice telephone service (including cellular and VOIP), contributes, but internet providers do not.

I don't mention universal service to confuse the issue. I mention it as an example of the heavily-political, expensive, misconceived sort of program that becomes fair game when you bring internet service into the world of common carriers. The world of telecom has many different regimes. Not just from a legal standpoint, but from a philosophical and political standpoint. Phone service is considered crucial public infrastructure. It is subject to Title II. It is subject to USF. It is subject to extensive FCC oversight. It is the subject of political bellyaching about how people in rural America are entitled to have their high-cost service subsidized by everyone else. That's one regime. The other is internet and cable service. This is a land of ponies and cupcakes. Once you reclassify internet services as common carriers, you put internet service in a whole different bucket, not just legally, but philosophically and politically. And you don't want internet service in the same bucket as phone service. It's an awful place, full of people who think that companies shouldn't spend money building gigabit in New York when people in rural Alabama still have 256 kbps DSL.

Your point about the common law definition of common carrier is well-taken. It isn't irrelevant, because the D.C. Circuit did look to it in its opinion. However, it's indirectly relevant.

If you start at the last paragraph of page 45 of the opinion: http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D93... you can see that the court is interpreting the statutory definition of "common carrier." Specifically the phrase: "A
telecommunications carrier shall be treated as a common
carrier under this Act only to the extent that it is engaged in providing telecommunications services.”
47 U.S.C. § 153(51). "Common carrier under this Act" essentially refers to Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934.

On page 47, the court notes that: "Offering little guidance as to the meaning of the term 'common carrier,' the Communications Act defines that phrase, somewhat circularly, as 'any person engaged as a common carrier for hire.' 47 U.S.C. § 153(11). Courts and the Commission have therefore resorted to the common law to come up with a satisfactory definition."

In other words, there are two definitions of "common carrier," one in the statute and one at common law, and because the one in the statute is underdefined, the court looks to the common law definition. But they are still separate definitions. 'snowwrestler said: "I don't think the rural telephone surcharge is a necessary component of common carrier. For example railroads are all common carriers and they are under no duty to run rail lines to every single community in the U.S."

The fact that the D.C. Circuit looked to the common law definition of "common carrier" to elucidate the statutory definition does not mean that the statutory definition cannot carry an independent set of obligations, different from the common law definition. Clear as mud?