Meanwhile, consumer groups reacted warily to Comcast's about-face. Nicholas Reville, co-founder and executive director of the Participatory Culture Foundation, wasn't buying what Comcast was selling.

"Comcast is taking a page right out of the auto-industry playbook: Car companies deny the importance of global warming while using announcements of future technology to block meaningful environmental protections," said Reville. "Comcast can see that public demands for net-neutrality protections are growing—this announcement is a transparent attempt to distract from that debate."

"The announcement from Comcast and BitTorrent has absolutely nothing to do with the need for net-neutrality protections and BitTorrent certainly does not speak for other torrent technology companies," Reville added.

Gigi Sohn, president of consumer rights group Public Knowledge, called Comcast's agreement with BitTorrent "irrelevant," and said in a statement that it does not have "any bearing on the complaint and petitions pending before the Federal Communications Commission on what rights users have on the internet."

"The F.C.C. should continue to reinforce its principles of internet access and should continue to work for the benefit of consumers regardless of any particular arrangements made by the private sector," Sohn added.

Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, which lobbies for net neutrality, said that "despite the welcome news that Comcast and BitTorrent are working together, the F.C.C. still needs to reinforce these efforts by establishing the basic rules of the road for BitTorrent users and all internet consumers by defining permissible broadband network-management practices."

"Time and time again, when the telcoms and cable companies engage in discriminatory behavior against certain types of speech and content—as we've seen with AT&T, Verizon, and most recently with Comcast—a familiar pattern emerges," Erickson said.

"First, a spotlight gets focused on the bad behavior," he said. "Then, when exposed, the companies state such action is within their power as network operators. After that, the F.C.C. and Congress focus on these discriminatory acts, and finally, the companies do a U-turn and apologize.

"While it's always a positive step when these companies admit the error of their ways," added Erickson, "it's a bad way to run the internet."