I'd never heard of squirrel lines before reading this.
"EARLY in the 20th century, American ranchers seeking contact with their neighbours configured their barbed-wire fences into primitive telephone networks. Often connecting only a handful of farms, the so-called "squirrel lines" were the butt of jokes at the Bell company - the nation's telephone monopoly - until Bell realised that rural communities were potentially lucrative markets. At first the monopolists attempted to take over by attacking the farmers' equipment. Then Bell came up with a more subtle solution: offer the rural companies long-distance access, effectively absorbing them in the process.
Relating this tale in The Master Switch, Tim Wu argues that the Bell saga is as relevant to the future as it is to the past. "To understand the forces threatening the internet as we know it," he writes, "we must understand how information technologies give rise to industries, and industries to empires." Wu is the rare writer capable of exhuming history and also interpreting current affairs. In this profound and important book, he excels at both...."
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/11/anarchy-or-empire-the-internet-in-the-balance.html
