Technical change is here, not decades away, and the authors argue that it is driving a new paradigm that fits neither the free market nor the regulatory control model currently in play.

They detail what is wrong with the political process of National Information Infrastructure policymaking and assess how different media systems (telecommunications, radio, television broadcasting, and the like) were originally established, spelling out the technological assumptions and organizational interests on which they were based and showing why the old policy models are now breaking down. The new digital electronic networks are not analogous to railways and highways or their electronic forebears in telephony and broadcasting - they are inherently unfriendly to centralized control of any sort, so the old traditions of common carriage and public trustee regulation and regulatory gamesmanship no longer apply.

The authors' technological and historical analysis leads logically to a policy proposal for a reformed regulatory structure that builds and protects meaningful competition but abandons its role as arbiter of tariffs and definer of the public interest.