Rasmussen’s latest poll of Internet users found that 63% of Internet users oppose FCC regulation of the Internet.  The polls conducted in 2008 were far more favorable to FCC Internet regulation but support has dropped 22%.  Considering how the FCC’s handling of the Comcast case was far more contentious than it needed to be, this new found opposition from consumers seems understandable.

Another interesting aspect of the poll is that the public is divided on throttling large downloads.

“Thirty-four percent (34%) of Americans think Internet providers should be able to slow down the downloading of large amounts of material so other customers are not effected. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree and say the providers should not be able to slow down those large downloads. Twenty-eight percent (28%) are undecided.”

I think if people were asked about the new Comcast “Fair Share” system which only slows down bandwidth hogs when other broadband subscribers are trying to use the Internet, they’d be far more favorable to the idea than a generic question of indiscriminate throttling of downloads.  Even Free Press’ Ben Scott acknowledged that the new system was fair on the radio yesterday morning.  Even a large group of college students at Rutgers University wanted download caps reinstated because the bandwidth hogs would spoil the network for everyone even if the system isn’t as finely targeted as Comcast’s new network management system.

A good friend of mine just asked me today about horrible jitter problems caused by his roommate’s BitTorrent usage and he just imposed a household ban on BitTorrent before midnight once I explained how BitTorrent is designed to be selfish.  He would not have to do this if the ISP implemented a prioritized network like Plus.Net which is far more neutral and fair.  This shows why we should all ignore Free Press’ calls for a dumber network.