Blandin on Broadband

The folks at the Daily Yonder are so good. Wally Bowen has written a timely history of Net Neutrality. Timely because of the FCC’s movement towards Net Neutrality and timely because of the ghostly Halloween twist. I love the image of early lack of Net Neutrality when all of the phone calls came through the local operator and if she liked you, Mable could send all of the calls to you and none to your competitor. Apparently that need for neutrality spurred a Kansas undertaker to create the first telephone switch to bypass Mable. Bowen also tells the story of the Carterphone and how one man’s early remote phone started the discussion of the incumbents opening up their wires to competitors.