From the MIT Tech Review:

On June 28, the Senate Commerce Committee rejected amendments that would have built a ban on tiered pricing for Internet access into the big telecommunications bill Congress is trying to pass this session. It was a big blow for "net neutrality" advocates, who argue that if the major cable and telephone companies are allowed to sell certain customers faster Internet connections, those who can’t afford the new tolls will be relegated to the slow lane.

For all the fuss, however, net neutrality was a non-issue one year ago. In the July 7 issue of the National Journal, senior writer Drew Clark asks how the prospect of tiered Internet access suddenly became a focus of public and Congressional debate. He traces the origins of the debate to a few revealing remarks by Ed Whitacre, the CEO of the company then known as SBC (and soon to become AT&T), suggesting that the company was eager to start charging big customers more for access to the company’s Internet backbone connections.

It’s true that Whitacre’s statement raised the alarm among heavy Internet users — but Whitacre was hardly the first to think of turning the Internet into a toll road.