Comcast has agreed to stop the traffic shaping of BitTorrent connections and work with the company to find common ground on rich media distribution and network capacity management.

BitTorrent president Ashwin Navin commented to us via email about the change in relationship with Comcast:

We’ve been in discussions with Comcast for over 2 years about how to re-architect their network in order to optimize for media delivery. The recent press about network management (and the FCC hearing on the matter) was a catalyst to announce our previous activities. We are particularly enthusiastic about Comcast’s commitment to make their network management protocol agnostic (neutral to all applications) as well as their efforts to upgrade broadband speeds for both downstream AND upstream traffic. We will optimize our application to take advantage of their network upgrades and share those techniques with the broader Internet community (via standards bodies like the IETF, for example).

BitTorrent users on Comcast should be happy with the news today. The acrimonious relationship between Comcast and its BitTorrent using customers should be in abeyance now that the cable broadband provider decided to stop with the traffic shaping already:

On the one hand, Comcast announced that it will migrate by year-end 2008 to a capacity management technique that is protocol agnostic. “This means that we will have to rapidly reconfigure our network management systems, but the outcome will be a traffic management technique that is more appropriate for today’s emerging Internet trends,” said Tony Werner, Comcast Cable’s Chief Technology Officer.

“While we think there were other management techniques that could have been deployed, we understand why Comcast and other ISPs adopted the approach that they did initially…..we are pleased that Comcast understands these changing traffic patterns and wants to collaborate with us to migrate to techniques that the Internet community will find to be more transparent,” said Eric Klinker, BitTorrent’s Chief Technology Officer.

Comcast initially disputed customer reports that the broadband provider fiddled with BitTorrent connections. But a subsequent investigation found they were indeed doing that. Blogosphere drama ensued, and reached all the way to the FCC, which took an interest in the kerfuffle.

As Gizmodo noted, there is a catch, one that could mean the end of unlimited access plans:

Comcast CTO Tony Warner says that “Rather than slow traffic by certain types of applications — such as file-sharing software or companies like BitTorrent — Comcast will slow traffic for those users who consume the most bandwidth.” So feel free to use BitTorrent, just don’t use it too much or your speeds will dip down to nothing.

Possible translation? Here comes the usage meter. Also, TorrentFreak discussed a plug-in that will help detect if one’s ISP is playing silly buggers with BitTorrent connections.

Update: we also heard from Free Press about this too:

Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press and author of the FCC complaint, issued the following statement:

“These talks are the direct result of public pressure — and the threat of FCC action — against Comcast. But with Comcast’s history of broken promises and record of deception, we can’t just take their word that the Internet is now in safe hands. This doesn’t change the urgent need for the FCC to take action.

“The issue of Net Neutrality is bigger than Comcast and BitTorrent. This agreement does nothing to protect the many other peer-to-peer companies from blocking, nor does it protect future innovative applications and services. Finally, it does nothing to prevent other phone and cable companies from blocking. Innovators should not have to negotiate side deals with phone and cable companies to operate without discrimination. The Internet has always been a level playing field, and we need to keep it that way.”