T-Mobile CEO Responds to 'Binge On’ Controversy, Announces 14 New Partners

[KALLT]

This is not designed to directly benefit the consumer but will protect them by maintaining competition in the marketplace. Even if becoming a T-Mobile Binge On partner is completely free it is still violating the spirit of Net Neutrality as it is endorsing one service over another.

Your post is otherwise spot on, but as a matter of fact, this “Binge On” does directly benefit consumers, but only in the short term. You can see in this thread that it is tough to argue against “FREE”. ISPs have a vested interest against net neutrality, so they try to find their way around it by directly appealing to the consumer with these offers. As you correctly point out, there is always someone who loses out if net neutrality is violated.

so you're disagreeing based on political principle, not based on the actual value a consumer and customer of t-mobile actually gets by this program

What people fail to grasp is that net neutrality is not for the sole benefit of the consumer. It is for the benefit of everyone who uses or may use the network. That includes content providers as well. It is great that T-Mobile lets their customers stream video from partners for free, but that means that every non-partner needs to engage with T-Mobile directly to get access to customers under the same terms. Imagine if every provider on the world would do that, it would make it difficult for new content providers to challenge the bigger players.

 

[Surf Donkey]

I am not a TMO customer. But "the corporations" here is actually doing their customers a favor. Period. There is a difference between a practice that is bad for consumers and one that is not, and being able to tell the difference is a sign of intelligence...

Exactly, and I will assume you are a smart person. So you should know this idea of "preferred data" is bad for the consumers. You know that throttling all video but only counting some of it against your data cap is not doing the customer a favor. So why did tmo implement it this way?

 

[rdlink]

Exactly, and I will assume you are a smart person. So you should know this idea of "preferred data" is bad for the consumers. You know that throttling all video but only counting some of it against your data cap is not doing the customer a favor. So why did tmo implement it this way?

Actually, what I do know is that what TMO is doing is NOT bad for the consumers. They offered an OPTIONAL program that would allow customers to stream data from partners with no effect on their data plan, and allow them to stream from non partners at a stream that reduced their data usage. The customer has the right to turn it off anytime they want. Period. If you ask 98% of TMO's customers whether they think they're being wronged by TMO they would say no. And the other 2% are just raging against the machine, with no understanding of what they're doing to themselves by complaining.

 

[KALLT]

Actually, what I do know is that what TMO is doing is NOT bad for the consumers. They offered an OPTIONAL program that would allow customers to stream data from partners with no effect on their data plan, and allow them to stream from non partners at a stream that reduced their data usage. The customer has the right to turn it off anytime they want. Period. If you ask 98% of TMO's customers whether they think they're being wronged by TMO they would say no. And the other 2% are just raging against the machine, with no understanding of what they're doing to themselves by complaining.

A net neutrality issue needs to be appreciated from all involved sides, not just the consumer. It is not a consumer law. The idea of net neutrality is to preserve the integrity and potential of the network, without allowing anyone to control how others may use it.

Can you really not imagine that this is potentially bad for content providers? T-Mobile customers now have an incentive to choose T-Mobile’s Binge On partners, because then the video will be free. This effectively forces every content provider to engage with T-Mobile to benefit from that program too. Instead of using just the network, content providers have to fulfil T-Mobile’s specific requirements to get the most out of the network to reach potential customers. This is why this program is bad from a net neutrality point of view. In this case, the position of the consumer does not matter at all.

 

[keifer.street]

This is kind of a duplicate comment to my earlier post, but it is still relevant and truthful nonetheless.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/7/10733298/john-legere-binge-on-lie

 

[harry*333]

true, but that is competition in general.
your case can also be used to illustrate how sometimes small startup firms can't compete with big firms because big firms can afford to pay more to have advertising in NFL games, and the poor little startups cant.

should we ban superbowl advertising?

What makes this different from most business including Super Bowl advertising is that ISPs are more similar to your water supply company. That is to say internet is a utility that is to be provided without selection. Your water company cannot choose to suddenly shut off your supply because the local factory is willing to pay more.

 

[31 Flavas]

Imagine you want to launch your own movie/TV streaming website to compete directly with Netflix because you don't like the color red and Netflix uses a lot of red. So you register a domain name, design a slick website, broker deals with all the major production companies etc. You have now successfully created and launched your new service which is half the price of Netflix and provides double the content. A year goes by but your subscriber base is still very small so you decide to investigate why. You discover that consumers with T-Mobile are given unlimited data access to Netflix for free while accessing your site eats through their data cap.

First problem I see here is that, in order to make your story, you're conveniently leaving out the lions share of customers -- everyone else not using mobile devices. Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand the vast majority of Netflix customers watch Netflix directly from their computer. Followed by game systems: Playstation / Xbox / Wii(U). If you're half the price and provide double the content then Netflix and you *really* can't attract customers while providing access though these major outlets -- then you've got other problems and T-Mo "binge on" isn't one of them.

Second of all, you're telling me that you've designed a slick website, you've brokered deals with all the movie companies, presumably you've also built a massive backend to serve out all of this TV and Movie content, and even payed Comcast and TWI enough not to choke their customers access you your service (which is where Net Neutrality really matters) -- But, it's too much time, money, and effort to figure out how to meet the technical requirements of T-Mo's Binge On service.

You and your business have got problems, but Binge On from T-Mo isn't one of them.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Wow. So much ignorance exposed with so much conviction. It is you that needs to learn terms, not John Legere.

Let me explain it in two words: time versus space

T-Mobile isnot slowing the bandwidth of content, as bandwidth applies solely to the time-domain (symbols-per-second). What T-Mobile is doing, instead, is down-converting original content from 1080p30 to 480p30 (or 60). That is aspatial reduction of content, that happens to be a geometric payload reduction over the wire by a factor of 4^2=16X.

There is no a flow-control or throttling of bandwidth -- only spatial reduction: time remains unchanged, space gets reduced 0(16X).

A classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. You could almost be excused for not knowing what you are talking about, but by calling out someone else for the same thing, you just look ridiculous.

Read some of the tests done recently that prove they are throttling and not down-converting and let us know how those tests are wrong (and, please provide some proof/links, not just your opinion).

 

[teknikal90]

What makes this different from most business including Super Bowl advertising is that ISPs are more similar to your water supply company. That is to say internet is a utility that is to be provided without selection. Your water company cannot choose to suddenly shut off your supply because the local factory is willing to pay more.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Out...roundwater+million+litres/10865416/story.html

Anyway, I don't think so.
To use the same analogy, it would be like a plant store telling its customers, if you buy our plants, we'll pay your water bill as long as you use the extra water to water our plants. What's wrong with that?
The water company doesnt need to shut off water to everyone else who isn't a customer of the plant store (Tmobile's BingeOn)

I don't see anything wrong with that. Netflix is paying T Mobile to give its customers unlimited viewing.
It's like Netflix giving Tmobile customers 2 years free subscription. Nothing wrong with that either.
Just Promotion expense.

 

[ctyrider]

I am not a TMO customer. But "the corporations" here is actually doing their customers a favor. Period. There is a difference between a practice that is bad for consumers and one that is not, and being able to tell the difference is a sign of intelligence...

You are seriously naive if you believe that T-mobile does this as a "favor" to you. They have done their analysis of video usage by their customers and concluded that they can reduce the aggregate Network load by downsampling the bitrates. All the while marketing it as "free streaming". Majority of their smartphone customers are probably not even aware that this "Binge On" thing is enabled. So they don't ever change their usage patterns, but just get degraded quality of all video they stream.

There is nothing altruistic here in what T-Mobile is doing. They are giving you a pile of crap and calling it ice cream.

 

[Surf Donkey]

The water company doesnt need to shut off water to everyone else who isn't a customer of the plant store (Tmobile's BingeOn)

But Tmobile is doing exactly that. They are limiting all water sources and charging you if you don't get that water from their approved water sources. This is ********. They should be charging the same (in this case making the data usage "unlimited") for all services they are throttling. Or stop limiting the services that they charge for.

At the very least (although I disagree with this practice entirely) they should have an option in binge on to not throttle non-partner sites. But that is not what Tmobile wants. They want to limit everything with a carrot of some free sites dangling to help clear up their network congestion.

 

[MacAddict1978]

Who's content with 480p? It's 2016.

On a phone screen, unless you have bionic eyes, you probably would never notice at all unless comparing side by side.

And oh, if you want 1080P on a device incapable of really showing you that clarity for it's screen and that would defy the abilities of the human eyes to see, you can always turn binge on off.

I personally love t-mo's ceo. Everything he said is spot on, and for the crying fools out, you can turn it on and off at will.
Yet if Apple or Verizon did something like this, raped you without vaseline for the privilege, you would clap like donkeys at how great it was.

 

[harry*333]

First problem I see here is that, in order to make your story, you're conveniently leaving out the lions share of customers -- everyone else not using mobile devices. Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand the vast majority of Netflix customers watch Netflix directly from their computer. Followed by game systems: Playstation / Xbox / Wii(U). If you're half the price and provide double the content then Netflix and you *really* can't attract customers while providing access though these major outlets -- then you've got other problems and T-Mo "binge on" isn't one of them.

Second of all, you're telling me that you've designed a slick website, you've brokered deals with all the movie companies, presumably you've also built a massive backend to serve out all of this TV and Movie content, and even payed Comcast and TWI enough not to choke their customers access you your service (which is where Net Neutrality really matters) -- But, it's too much time, money, and effort to figure out how to meet the technical requirements of T-Mo's Binge On service.

You and your business have got problems, but Binge On from T-Mo isn't one of them.

I think you're reading too much into the details and are missing the big picture. Also don't forget that in the US there are really only four carriers to choose from and if one starts offering unlimited video as a perk it won't be long before all four are.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Out...roundwater+million+litres/10865416/story.html

Anyway, I don't think so.
To use the same analogy, it would be like a plant store telling its customers, if you buy our plants, we'll pay your water bill as long as you use the extra water to water our plants. What's wrong with that?
The water company doesnt need to shut off water to everyone else who isn't a customer of the plant store (Tmobile's BingeOn)

I don't see anything wrong with that. Netflix is paying T Mobile to give its customers unlimited viewing.
It's like Netflix giving Tmobile customers 2 years free subscription. Nothing wrong with that either.
Just Promotion expense.

The plant store analogy doesn't really represent the industry well. You need three parties; a service, a carrier, and a customer. There are numerous plant stores but only a four delivery trucks(everyone is independent). Now imagine you wanted to order a plant from store "A" but all four delivery trucks said they only deliver plants from stores "B" through "Z". This is the issue of net neutrality. The middleman is interfering with the flow between service and customer. Binge On is essentially the delivery being free from all stores except "A" even though there is no cost difference for the delivery truck.

If T-Moblie gave their customers free subscriptions to Netflix it would be legal because it does not affect the access to competitors. Although there would still probably be some form of anti-trust inquiry.

 

[thermodynamic]

Who's content with 480p? It's 2016.

People who don't want to see monthly bandwidth sucked away for a high definition crispy video for something that won't care to see or get made over how much bandwidth and space was wasted for the song and dance they did not want to see but was thrust upon them via an obtrusive ad on a page that is so chock full of ads that people will likely abandon the market at some point...

People who know that the pixel resolution in devices compared to storage size wastes a lot of space for even one eBook...

People who know that the pixel resolution in devices compared to screen size compared to distance from eye...

Before I continue, just how long a list that people are not going to care about would you want me to shatter the blissful dreams with?

Then again, with such a tightly packed pixel density, one never need worry about stuck or dead pixels - which do exist but the human eye can't see that level of detail. Or did I allude to that in one of the aforementioned points already? But who needs 16GB of memory? Just sell the 64GB version for $200 more and don't include a microSD card slot so we can save tons of money by purchasing expansion storage for or when or if we want or need it. Dang customers, gotta try to make them forget the freedoms they had in the past before profiteering can really kick in...

 

[ToroidalZeus]

You are seriously naive if you believe that T-mobile does this as a "favor" to you. They have done their analysis of video usage by their customers and concluded that they can reduce the aggregate Network load by downsampling the bitrates. All the while marketing it as "free streaming". Majority of their smartphone customers are probably not even aware that this "Binge On" thing is enabled. So they don't ever change their usage patterns, but just get degraded quality of all video they stream.

There is nothing altruistic here in what T-Mobile is doing. They are giving you a pile of crap and calling it ice cream.

Actually if you watch the video then you'll hear that video usage has actually increased for some demographic.

A net neutrality issue needs to be appreciated from all involved sides, not just the consumer. It is not a consumer law. The idea of net neutrality is to preserve the integrity and potential of the network, without allowing anyone to control how others may use it.

Can you really not imagine that this is potentially bad for content providers? T-Mobile customers now have an incentive to choose T-Mobile’s Binge On partners, because then the video will be free. This effectively forces every content provider to engage with T-Mobile to benefit from that program too. Instead of using just the network, content providers have to fulfil T-Mobile’s specific requirements to get the most out of the network to reach potential customers. This is why this program is bad from a net neutrality point of view. In this case, the position of the consumer does not matter at all.

This isn't accurate. There is no incentive to chose BingeOn partners because you still have the option to pay for however much data you want and watch whatever you want. And by using BingeOn, you are giving up quality. So it's not a one-way incentive street. There is both a pro and a con to BingeOn; that makes it balanced so to speak.

 

[magicman32]

But Tmobile is doing exactly that. They are limiting all water sources and charging you if you don't get that water from their approved water sources. This is ********. They should be charging the same (in this case making the data usage "unlimited") for all services they are throttling. Or stop limiting the services that they charge for.

At the very least (although I disagree with this practice entirely) they should have an option in binge on to not throttle non-partner sites. But that is not what Tmobile wants. They want to limit everything with a carrot of some free sites dangling to help clear up their network congestion.

It's a relatively new service. Not everyone is going to be on in a couple of months. I believe they've added partners at a faster rate than music. The fact still remains ANYONE can have their data zero-rated if they want. Why the rush to judge before the dust has settled? He is addressing issues, taking questions and the fact that there's a discussion about this at all is a good thing. If there is anything shady going on (which I don't believed there is) the discussion is especially good in that respect in keeping the heat and scrutiny on him/them. Being good for the consumer and good for the business doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. They both can be true.

Don't like it? Turn it off, use your data allotment, or go back to the duopoly and go about your life and find an actual real issue to care about (i.e. Stop eating meat - help the planet, animals and yourself all in one fell swoop).

 

[Totorotarrot]

Here's a screenshot from a video set to 480p on YouTube. If I was worried about my data consumption this would be adequate quality.

I often watch game streaming (hearthstone or heroes of be storm) and I honestly appreciate 1080 streaming. 480 is almost impossible to watch because u really have to read tiny text, numbers, etc and track hundred flying *****. There is def use case for 1080p on YouTube and since I mainly watch those content I would def opt out of it if I use tmobile. (I don't)

 

[magicman32]

Exactly, and I will assume you are a smart person. So you should know this idea of "preferred data" is bad for the consumers. You know that throttling all video but only counting some of it against your data cap is not doing the customer a favor. So why did tmo implement it this way?

So the data that still does count against your cap but uses less of it because of binge on is bad for the consumer? I can't even comprehend that logic.

And as aside, ANYONE can still become a partner, it isn't a finite situation, it's very fluid and ever-shifting. But the jury is in already for the malcontents I guess. We consumers really don't deserve anything good because of crap like this.

 

[Surf Donkey]

So the data that still does count against your cap but uses less of it because of binge on is bad for the consumer? I can't even comprehend that logic.

And as aside, ANYONE can still become a partner, it isn't a finite situation, it's very fluid and ever-shifting. But the jury is in already for the malcontents I guess. We consumers really don't deserve anything good because of crap like this.

Yes it is bad for the consumer ultimately. It is obvious where this is going. Netflix and youtube have quality selections. If I want to use less bandwidth I can adjust these.

And I am not a part of any duopoly. Well at least not directly. I am on Project Fi which charges the same for all data. They don't prioritize or throttle data which is exactly what is going on here. They do use tmo and sprint on the backend but without all this stupid ****. And I am happy with that because data shouldn't be prioritized based on if you are a "partner".

Turning this on by default (especially for unlimited customers) is either shady for very stupid. I am not sure which.

 

[racooper3]

I really like this guy. Sticking it to the big guys, who are not very innovative. If they had more tower capacity in my area, I would go back to them.

 

[garylapointe]

The only problem I have with Binge On is they turned it on by default.

If it was opt-in and the opt-in was "we're going to downgrade ALL video to 480p AND not charge you for these specific sites" that's okay, you don't have to take the deal, you can pay for all the video streaming.

The deal is free 480p video from these sites but everything else is 480p too. It's YOUR choice.

(Unless they are throttling the speed, which is not what they are advertising.)

Gary

 

[31 Flavas]

I think you're reading too much into the details and are missing the big picture. Also don't forget that in the US there are really only four carriers to choose from and if one starts offering unlimited video as a perk it won't be long before all four are.

Just explain to me how you can build your "better the netflix" business which will take an enormous amount of money and talent and skill, but will be less monetarily expensive and less technically complex then contacting T-mo to get the details on setting up and getting the digital signatures in place to identify your video traffic to T-Mo. That's child's play. You are the one missing the forest for the trees. Your hypothetical "better the netflix" business will rest on home users accessing from their home computer or video game consoles / blu-ray dvd players. Nail this core audience. The mobile users, the Roku's, the Apple TVs, the SmartTVs, etc are icing on the cake.

1080p and 4K video is too valuable to AT&T and VZW as its spins your mobile data rate meter at light speed -- it sells huge expensive data packages and data overage fees. Dumb and Dumber will never offer to rate limit or zero-rate video data, free of charge, for the benefit of their consumers or content providers.

 

[Zirel]

This is kind of a duplicate comment to my earlier post, but it is still relevant and truthful nonetheless.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/7/10733298/john-legere-binge-on-lie

WTF?

Don't you know that The Verge is Google's attack dog, together with EFF, who's founded by Google?

Pure manipulation.

 

[Surf Donkey]

1080p and 4K video is too valuable to AT&T and VZW as its spins your mobile data rate meter at light speed -- it sells huge expensive data packages and data overage fees. Dumb and Dumber will never offer to rate limit or zero-rate video data, free of charge, for the benefit of their consumers or content providers.

What I don't get is why is Tmobile implementing it this convoluted way. Hint, is has more benefit to their bottom line. If they are truly out to benefit you, just remove or raise their data caps.
[doublepost=1452224927][/doublepost]

WTF?

Don't you know that The Verge is Google's attack dog, together with EFF, who's founded by Google?

Pure manipulation.

WTF to you! Founded by Google??? get your facts straight.

 

[Zirel]

WTF to you! Founded by Google??? get your facts straight.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409070,00.asp
http://fortune.com/2012/07/30/google-and-facebooks-new-tactic-in-the-tech-wars/

Get your facts straight.