Another good article from MIT’s Technology Review.
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/17245/page1/
Net Neutrality: Lessons from the Past
An Internet without net neutrality might become as fragmented as U.S. mobile phone networks, say some observers. But history may hold even richer lessons.
“Critics claim that without net neutrality, the Internet will be plagued by the same problems as the cell-phone networks: an oligopoly will emerge, innovators will be edged out, and technology will stagnate.
But some experts say history offers even more compelling lessons for those envisioning an Internet where content providers can pay to get their messages to customers as fast as possible.
Transformations in the telegraph industry in the mid-19th century provide one scenario for what can happen when owners of large networks extend their influence. During the Civil War, Western Union began controlling telegraph trunk lines across the country [and achieved] a near-monopoly by 1866… it focused on serving business customers, forgoing innovations that would have made it more affordable for the press or private citizens to communicate by telegraph…
“There does seem to me to be a historical analogy” with the current telecommunications marketplace, says Paul Starr, a social historian at Princeton University, who wrote about telegraphy and other early forms of telecommunications in his 2005 book, The Creation of the Media. “In both cases, the incumbents that dominate networks have tried to exploit their existing position rather than innovating.”
…”It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine Verizon treating their Internet property just like their cell phone network — short-sightedly milking it for all it’s worth, at great expense to the public, and to the future,” Glass wrote.
Mark Donovan, a senior analyst at M:Metrics, a Seattle market research firm that monitors mobile commerce, agrees. “The cable and long-distance companies would like to look a little more like mobile phone companies, in terms of their ability to control traffic on the Internet,” he says…
