Comcast: We made 'mistake' in slowing Web traffic to file-sharing site

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on Wednesday said “it was a mistake” for the company to slow down Internet traffic to file-sharing site BitTorrent.

During an address at the Congressional Internet Caucus’s State of the Net Conference on Capitol Hill, a contrite Roberts noted the company changed its policy without government intervention.

“We realized it was not the right solution," he said.

The temporary traffic-throttling was one of only two instances that interrupted access to content or websites, Roberts said.

The controversial action by Comcast escalated a fight with consumer groups, which want the government to draw up rules prohibiting such an action. 

The net neutrality regulations now under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are favored by Democrats in Congress. But Comcast fiercely opposes them, and Roberts on Wednesday said they would create a “bad cloud.”

“Wall Street will pull capital spending” for Comcast, he said, echoing Republicans’ fears that FCC intervention will get in the way of investments for bigger, faster broadband networks. “You’re regulated before you’ve even invented.”

The Comcast action with BitTorrent also led the FCC to order the company to stop interfering with Internet traffic. Comcast challenged the FCC in court, and judges earlier this month questioned the FCC's authority to sanction Comcast.

“We don’t block websites and we don’t do anything to not have an open and free Internet,” Roberts said, adding that broadband service is the fastest-growing area of the company’s business.

“In this space, there’s nothing prohibiting Apple or Google from doing whatever they want,” he said. “The Internet is still growing at 50 to 60 percent a year. It’s an explosion and none of us want to get in the way of that innovation.”