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The internet evolved over the phone lines, where providers were legally banned from blocking traffic. They were made to play nice. The fact we still have a free

• kragen 11y ago
  While I agree that common carrier obligations helped the internet significantly, your picture of history is still mostly wrong, and the particle of truth in it is drastically oversimplified. The internet didn't evolve over phone lines. Phone-line providers weren't legally banned from blocking traffic, and in fact did legally block data traffic over phone lines for decades. Common carrier obligations didn't exist in most of the countries where we have a free internet, and have never been relevant to most of the participants in the internet: not to AlohaNet, not to ARPANet, not to Mindvox, not to Netcom, not to UUNET, not to AOL, not to Level3, not to Global Crossing, certainly not to JANET, not to NSFNet, and not to The Little Garden. Rather, the internet was created by an academic-military coalition that had sufficient political power to overcome the phone companies' and regulators' opposition to data networking. It's plain that you weren't on com-priv then, you aren't on NANOG or equivalent now, and you haven't read the history.