I would argue that the telecom industry went about a century without much change...and indeed, a lot of hardware-oriented industries have not really changed, and the same applies to utilities in general. Transportation is a similar case, at least on the freight side (air freight being largely a niche market).
Granted, a number of industries underwent upheavals in the last few decades...but at the same time there's a tendency to simply watch as deckchairs are rearranged in a lot of cases. You've had some new industries created (social media comes to mind), but the same general structures do tend to prevail in a given industry over time (i.e. natural monopoly, oligopoly, limited competition, or open competition) absent significant government intervention.
I think it is fair to note that prior to roughly WWI, a lot of stuff hadn't taken shape yet simply because in 1900 the "developed world" arguably consisted of much of the US, the UK, France, Benelux, and Germany. A number of major powers (Russia, the Ottoman Empire) had at best spotty development (widespread telegraphy was a maybe in many areas, widespread telephone service often only found in some major cities), and the US was still closing the frontier (OK, NM, and AZ weren't yet states) while Canada was a good way off (Alberta and Saskatchewan were still barely populated...you probably didn't have more than 200,000 people between Manitoba and British Columbia, the NWT included). Basically, there was still an openness not likely to be repeated in the foreseeable future (and let us not contemplate what would get us there considering what had to happen to allow that openness last time around).
