Today, these challengers come in the form of cable companies and wireless firms.
Meanwhile, the telecom industry – and its corporate and political allies – have been working hard to turn the internet into just an enhanced form of cable television.
The telecoms have repeatedly promised not to do what is in their obvious best interest: turn the internet into an enhanced form of cable television.
This wasn't a few evening hours at the neighbor's house, with payment in the form of cable TV and leftover London broil.
Yet, the Obama administration has used tactics that smell of censorship, and Congress is making common cause with a corporate cartel that wants to turn the internet into little more than an enhanced form of cable television.
President Obama, breaking yet more of the promises he made as a candidate, has made common cause with the people who want to turn the internet into a more interactive form of cable television and not much more.
It's been gratifying to watch, but don't get your hopes up: the FCC chairman, former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler, floated the idea of internet "fast lanes" earlier this year – and he'll probably to turn the web into a somewhat enhanced form of cable TV anyway.
"Next week, the U.S. will declare that broadcast, and broadcast in the form of cable, is no longer the common medium, and that the new common medium is broadband," Mr. Hundt said, referring to the unveiling of the national broadband plan last year.
It is such a big change of direction that people following the company cannot tell if it is another effort to learn more about consumer tastes, a diversification into a whole new area or the old Intel deciding it has what it takes to face another rival, in the form of cable companies.
The biggest is the degree of competition in the market, which governments have generally encouraged by allowing the construction of rival infrastructure to the telephone network, usually in the form of cable networks.But the existence of rival infrastructure is not enough.
