I've been working steadily for quite a while on a paper comparing the IP battles to the network neutrality battle.  As we've all discovered, these are very hard issues.  There aren't clear answers, although the social benefits of the neutral-substrate internet (like the social benefits of the public domain) seem to be ignored by the people claiming the need for protection of their property rights.

It's finally becoming clear to me that the social argument is the only real argument. 

Yes, the "incentives" argument made by the network providers is strange, in ways that are similar to the strangenesses of the IP incentives arguments.  (People build things without knowing they'll be paid back.  Some of these broadband access points have already been built.  Etc.)  And the market power of the current network providers is important and seems to trigger a need for government involvement.  The economic arguments are powerful as well -- there are substantial positive externalities created by access to the internet that shouldn't be captured just by the access providers.

The key, though, is that neutrality (or unbundling, my preferred way of doing this) will be better for society as a whole.  Awarding very strong property rights to the network providers, like awarding very strong property rights to content companies, won't be as beneficial to society as tempering those rights somewhat.  We've done this in the IP context with things like fair use and "limited times" for copyright and patent protection.  Indeed, the whole point of IP law is to encourage the creation of useful things for society; benefiting IP owners is a means towards that end.

Now we need to do this more directly with communications law.  Tempering the property rights of the powerful broadband access providers will result in -- overall -- better results for society.  The short history of the youthful internet has shown us what can happen when a substrate is essentially neutral.

Okay -- fire away.