This, to me, is one of the most interesting topics of our time, and I find it fascinating the similarities (both philosophically and economically) to that of the railroads at the turn of the 20th century.
Much like net neutrality is the topic of the FCC, cargo neutrality on rail lines was the topic of the ICC [1] in their day. The problem of the early 1900s began with a bounty of riches in the highly competitive American Railway sector. Merchants using the railways were demanding "rebates" from railway companies for large shipments threatening to take business elsewhere and driving their shipping costs down. Of course, the same leverage was not available to smaller shippers, making their rates much higher and forcing them to raise the prices of their goods. The system was out of balance.
In 1903, congress and President Theodore Roosevelt, passed the Elkins Act [2], which eliminated rebates, but had the unfortunate side-effect of increasing price collusion between shippers and the railroads. The Elkins act did not establish a fixed rate, leaving interests to make deals that, again, were disadvantageous for smaller businesses. The only metric of discrimination was the diverting from a fixed railway schedule [3].
To correct the problems of the Elkins Act, the Hepburn Act was passed in 1906 greatly expanding the power of the ICC to regulate the Railroad Industry. The result was fixed prices on shipping deemed "just and reasonable" by the ICC, increased penalties for non-compliance, and an open and standard accounting system for the railroad companies. (As an aside, the depreciation of railway companies contributed to the Panic of 1907. A good word on that here: [4])
If all this back and forth sounds familiar, it is because we are facing the same problem today shipping bits that we were shipping coal and shirts all those years ago. The idea of prioritized delivery is not new or novel, but was dealt with before Netflix and Verizon began suing one another. What interests me is whether we will see legislation similar to the Elkins and Hepburn act for digital goods and services. I doubt very seriously that we will get fixed $/(Mbps) or $/GB mandates from the FCC, but already we are seeing definitions being made and lines being drawn [5]. There is already language from Wheeler about "responsibility to the 20 percent [without 25down/3up]", just as there was strong language from Roosevelt about the railway industries.
2015 will be an interesting year indeed.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Commission [2] http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Enc... [3] http://books.google.com/books?id=g-pCAAAAIAAJ&dq=elkins%20ac... [4] http://books.google.com/books?id=R3koAAAAYAAJ&hl=en [5] http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/broadband-now-defined-25-...