Pricing and architecture of the Internet: Historical perspectives from telecommunications and transportation
Andrew Odlyzko: Pricing and architecture of the Internet: Historical perspectives from telecommunications and transportation:
The general conclusion then is that the historical record of the transportation industry does demonstrate the importance and prevalence of disciminatory policies that are incompatible with the basic architecture of the current Internet. This probably accounts for much of the push to build new networks, or modify the current ones so as to provide more control for service providers over what customers do. However, the Internet is special, in its importance as an enabler for the rest of the economy, in its migration of costs and capabilities to the edges, in its primary value being in connectivity and low transaction latency, and in its pervasiveness and frequency of use. Hence in spite of the strong push from the industry, there are good prospects that the open architecture of the Internet will survive.
