I watched Robert McDonnell’s statement on this ruling today on CNN (from Tuesday’s meeting) which was quite direct and forceful. Republican congress-critters could learn from him.
whether every child has a “right” to surf YouTube all day
Net neutrality doesn't address any right to an amount of service. You still have to pay if you want to surf all day.
ISPs and content providers pay the backbone operators for the bandwidth they use. They then pass the cost on to us.
Sort of. When it comes to large networks connecting together, they do so under peering agreements. Sometimes the backbone operator is paid, sometimes not, depends on the circumstances and how much traffic is flowing which way. Comcast is actually wanting backbone operator L3 to pay them, and they do have some good arguments for that.
The important point is that the ISPs have been calling the likes of Google "freeloaders" for supposedly using their lines for free. But Google already pays for its bandwidth, and the consumers already pay the ISPs for theirs. That's the way the Internet works. Comcast would like for Google to also pay them because Comcast sees the customers as assets to be held up for ransom.
Depending on where the tiers were set, usage-based pricing on wire line broadband could end up deterring some people from dropping cable for over-the-top video
Clear pricing structures for level of access to consumers, whether it be bandwidth or usage, are not part of net neutrality.
Remove the regulations and let each ISP come up with their own pricing plan.
There are no regulations in place, nor are there any proposed by government, that would overall regulate ISP pricing to consumers. The only thing happening here is that, for example, Comcast can't charge you more for them to unblock Vonage VOIP so that they can push their own VOIP service. That is anti-competitive and violates the openness the Internet was built on.
Charging more for enough bandwidth to handle HD streaming video is not a net neutrality issue. Charging even more for a higher download limit to handle a lot of HD streaming video is not a net neutrality issue.
Now that isn't to say the FCC won't get a wild hair up their ass and go trying to do these things now that they've claimed unlimited power. But that's what the telcos get when they pay their congresscritters to block sensible, narrowly-defined net neutrality legislation in Congress.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at the 2010 Facing Race Conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMeuhGC2dgA