: Subject: Konformist: Who Will Own the Internet?

Initially telcos were prohibited from ownership of backbone arpa internetwork providers, thats where companies like UUNET made their fortune. It took about 15 years, but eventually they lined enough pockets to have that law repealed. Now MCI through its purchase of UUNET owns about 40% of the backbone that makes up the "internet". AT&T through it's purchase of Cerfnet probably owns another 40% by now.

Initially the dialup ISP market was mostly made up of mom and pop ISPs and lots of competition. Now most of the smaller dialup providers have been aquired by larger companies.

Lots of noise was made recently about breaking the monopoly on DNS control. Noise is a good word. All root DNS servers are still controlled from one point. Alternative registers can now add to the name services database, but SAIC still controls that database.

I think the Internet's best times are already in the past.