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Drew Clark has pulled many of the loose threads of the Network Neutrality debate into a nice bundle called, "The tangled net of 'net neutrality." He does a good job on the power politics around the Verizon/SBC merger and in recounting the pivotal role of Ed Whitacre's intemperate Business Week comments.

Not all the threads get bundled, though. Clark makes much of Verizon lobbyist Tom Tauke's slogan . . .

. . . "Old wires, old rules; new wires, new rules," meaning that no matter what Congress and the FCC did involving telephones using old copper wires, they should deregulate the new fiber-optic strands that Verizon wanted to invest in.

But then, five paragraphs later, he notes that, in 2005, the Supreme Court's Brand X decision and the subsequent FCC DSL Order . . .

. . . meant that for the first time in modern communications law, fiber, co-axial, and copper Internet wires should all be regulated the same way.

. . . without a glance backwards, leaving me mystified; where'd Tauke's slogan go?

In addition, Clark nods in the direction of the, "fundamental issues of democracy and culture," raised by the conflict between a discriminatory 'net and a neutral one, but he never goes over there to have a chat. Nor does he delve into what happens if the Bells actually did engage in discriminatory blocking. Nor does he seem to think they would; at one point he declares that the Bells promised to obey the Four Internet Freedoms, and never considers that they might break that promise. (Curiously, he cites the Powell version of the Four Freedoms, not the Kevin Martin version codified by the Barton Bill [ref]).

Necessarily it is an incomplete history. The story is still unfolding. The happy ending comes in Clark's suggestion that we might have to wait 'til next year to see the finale.

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