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The fact that TMo gets to choose what data does and does not count against your cap should be an issue to everyone.

Why exactly?

This would be an issue if you couldn't turn it off. Or if T-Mobile charged a fee to those companies to add them to the list. Neither of these apply, and frankly i feel that lot of people complaining about this issue don't have T-mobile and don't have this enabled. Most of my data usage comes from watching Netflix, and Binge On is great. I get to drop to a cheaper plan because I'm not using as much data, and the DVD quality is more than enough for me on a 6S Plus.

I also don't see how this is a Net Neutrality issue.....T-Mobile is treating all data the same, the user is the one that decides that they want the data treated differently through consent (enabling or disabling Binge-On)....all T-Mobile is doing is facilitating the ability of it happening. At most the FCC may force T-Mobile to turn Binge-On off by default but i don't see it going anywhere.
 
I said, from the beginning, that T-Mobile would only be able to do this with Google's blessing and assistance.

Google has https, hsts, and every google IP can serve any site ( google, youtube, ... ). There is virtually no way to know what people are doing ( https ), no way to filter by DNS ( since they all share common IP's ), and virtually nothing to insert themselves into the cert chain ( hsts ) without breaking things.

This leaves them throttling ever connection to less than HD stream quality since there is little left for them to do without some cooperation from google.
 
Why exactly?

This would be an issue if you couldn't turn it off. Or if T-Mobile charged a fee to those companies to add them to the list. Neither of these apply, and frankly i feel that lot of people complaining about this issue don't have T-mobile and don't have this enabled. Most of my data usage comes from watching Netflix, and Binge On is great. I get to drop to a cheaper plan because I'm not using as much data, and the DVD quality is more than enough for me on a 6S Plus.

I also don't see how this is a Net Neutrality issue.....T-Mobile is treating all data the same, the user is the one that decides that they want the data treated differently through consent (enabling or disabling Binge-On)....all T-Mobile is doing is facilitating the ability of it happening. At most the FCC may force T-Mobile to turn Binge-On off by default but i don't see it going anywhere.
Yeah, it's a plus for the short term. But imagine if a small startup competing with Netflix came up. Ta da, now you have a Net Neutrality issue.
 
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TL;DR:
T-Mobile is offering unlimited 480p streaming to only 24 content partners, YouTube is not one of them. But T-Mobile is throttling YouTube to 480p anyways despite them not being a participant in the unlimited plans. It's a completely fair position for Google to take.
 
Why exactly?

This would be an issue if you couldn't turn it off. Or if T-Mobile charged a fee to those companies to add them to the list. Neither of these apply, and frankly i feel that lot of people complaining about this issue don't have T-mobile and don't have this enabled. Most of my data usage comes from watching Netflix, and Binge On is great. I get to drop to a cheaper plan because I'm not using as much data, and the DVD quality is more than enough for me on a 6S Plus.

I also don't see how this is a Net Neutrality issue.....T-Mobile is treating all data the same, the user is the one that decides that they want the data treated differently through consent (enabling or disabling Binge-On)....all T-Mobile is doing is facilitating the ability of it happening. At most the FCC may force T-Mobile to turn Binge-On off by default but i don't see it going anywhere.

Some counts against the data cap, others don't. That isn't treating all data the same.
 
Having just switched to T-Mobile from ATT this past 12/23, I am thrilled to have this much video stream from so many different sources at zero hit to my data plan. On my iPhone 6S, the "DVD" quality is fine by me considering how often I am watching content off of LTE, and I have no problem "suffering through" watching movies, etc on the go at 480P and honestly happy to do so. When you go back to WiFi, you get the full HD experience but honestly seeing a tech review on YouTube in 480P while I am away from WiFi is no big deal.

If you want to turn off the BINGE Feature you can and each line on your plan has the ability to control it, but its an all or noting toggle. Meaning you can't say BINGE ON for everything except say YouTube.
 
I can def see the difference. I spend most of my time on blogs with embedded videos. They still try to get to 1080p, but stutter. If you watch the same video on the youtube app, it is no where near as clear, but plays smoothly.

Honestly all the towers around me are super oversubscribed, on all carriers. I don't mind the lower res in the name of smoothness.
 
Yeah, it's a plus for the short term. But imagine if a small startup competing with Netflix came up. Ta da, now you have a Net Neutrality issue.

Still don't see how that's a Net Nutraility issue. If they want to be a part of the program they can just let T-Mobile know
 
Some counts against the data cap, others don't. That isn't treating all data the same.

But the decision of if this is enabled are not is up to the user and not T-Monile....does the user not have the right to determine how their data is treated?
 
But the decision of if this is enabled are not is up to the user and not T-Monile....does the user not have the right to determine how their data is treated?

Awesome. So I get to choose that YouTube doesn't count against my data cap on TMo?
 
I and many others were of the opinion that T-Mobile choosing to decline to charge for streaming video and audio were not a violation of the purpose of net neutrality, because they offered it to all.

Now I hear about "partners" and evidence of throttling a non-partner, and I have switched camps. This is absolutely a violation of net neutrality.
I looks like free video streaming is limiting all vendors to 480p. So there is no preferential treatment.
 
Not a surprise :rolleyes:
I can see TMo doing whatever it takes to make a program look good and help TMo.
Anyone else can just pucker up. :cool:
I and many others were of the opinion that T-Mobile choosing to decline to charge for streaming video and audio were not a violation of the purpose of net neutrality, because they offered it to all.

Now I hear about "partners" and evidence of throttling a non-partner, and I have switched camps. This is absolutely a violation of net neutrality.
That's what you get with second rate carriers like tmobile and sprint.

When it comes to T-Mobile, T-Mobile fanboys and T-Mobile kool-aid drinkers I always get at least a chuckle
( not that I'm accusing you 3 )


When it comes to T-Mobiles gimmicks and "Uncarrier moves"

I'm always reminded of the phrase "if it sounds to good to be true it usually is"


Side note love how some people don't fully read the articles ( or Terms and conditions of plans, features , promos etc. again not pointing fingers at the 3 quoted above )
 
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im not sure what i'm missing with Tmobile, i only know I hate youtubes advertisements. When video starts with it. Im in a 1sec not interested.

I downloaded Google chrome ad block, which bypass the advertisements video on youtube :)
 
I and many others were of the opinion that T-Mobile choosing to decline to charge for streaming video and audio were not a violation of the purpose of net neutrality, because they offered it to all.

Now I hear about "partners" and evidence of throttling a non-partner, and I have switched camps. This is absolutely a violation of net neutrality.

And here again we see why net neutrality is such a stupid policy. The FCC is asking companies about their "free data" plans. What business is it of the FCC what people do on the Internet and if they want to accept these plans? Control freaks.
 
And here again we see why net neutrality is such a stupid policy. The FCC is asking companies about their "free data" plans. What business is it of the FCC what people do on the Internet and if they want to accept these plans? Control freaks.

What? I do hope you're being sarcastic or joking.
 
Awesome. So I get to choose that YouTube doesn't count against my data cap on TMo?
No. You have two choose one of two options
1Everything counts against your data cap
2. Those companiues who have signed on for Binge on do not count against your data cap, though other sources (apparently) will also go against your data cap less because they are also further compressed.

TMO is treating all data the same. The problem is some data they can distinguish, others they cannot. Everything (apparently; I say apaprently because I still don't see compressed youtube video and I have opted in for Binge on) is still compressed.

The irony here is it doesn't seam like YT would be making a stink if their data wasn't compressed. hey say it's a net neutrality issue, but what it really seems to be is "we don't want our data compressed" under the guise of net neutrality.

What I dont really understand is, if all video is (apparently, ys I said it a third time) compressed, why does TMO even want an opt in? Binge on compresses everything. What is there, exactly, to opt in? That is what has me scratching my head still.
 
I looks like free video streaming is limiting all vendors to 480p. So there is no preferential treatment.
The preferential treatment , in the case of the article, would be that "preferred vendors" don't count against data allotment while others do. This ties into what I already said. If TMO has the ability to further compress all video under Binge on, why should any vendor be required to opt in?
 
I can def see the difference. I spend most of my time on blogs with embedded videos. They still try to get to 1080p, but stutter. If you watch the same video on the youtube app, it is no where near as clear, but plays smoothly.

Honestly all the towers around me are super oversubscribed, on all carriers. I don't mind the lower res in the name of smoothness.
Are you sure this isn't YT's servers downgrading the video for you? I alsk because both embedded and in app video look exactly the same for me over LTE. I've actually been running random tests just to try and see degraded video and I just don't see it. In the few cases I have been able to, a speedtest showed that my download speed was lower than optimal for a 1080p stream anyway.
 
I'm not so concerned about this. I would rather the videos not included with "binge on" to be a lower quality (it will eat up less data). Plus it's on a mobile device. Who cares. I usually don't watch videos on my phone as much as listen to them and glance at the screen.
 
Still don't see how that's a Net Nutraility issue. If they want to be a part of the program they can just let T-Mobile know
No, net neutrality is basically offering a open road to everyone where no one gets disadvantaged for having less money to offer.

In this case, anyone streaming service who is not paying T-Mobile is disadvantaged due to data caps. If there were 2 services or complete equal caliber except price, and that one did not pay T-Mobile to become a partner. They will be disadvantaged from a consumer standpoint and the consumer will choose the one that has paid rather than the other choice. These are the fundamentals of Net Neutrality that people don't seem to understand.
 
Yeah, it's a plus for the short term. But imagine if a small startup competing with Netflix came up. Ta da, now you have a Net Neutrality issue.
Uhm... No. You're wrong. There isn't any cost to "partner" with T-mo for BingeOn, there isn't any consumer cost, and most importantly BingeOn and its optimization for all other video is an entirely user defeatable system. Said small start up just has to contact t-mobile for the instructions on how to identify their video so that it gets exempted. You email John, or Neville Ray, or Michael Sievert or BingeOn@t-mobile.com for details.

They even have a PDF outlining this: https://www.t-mobile.com/content/dam/tmo/en-g/pdf/BingeOn-Video-Technical-Criteria-November-2015.pdf

Read that. No charge.

Anyone that meets those technical criteria can get their video content data exempted for free. Small startup or not, equal treatment and equal access. Equal opportunity to compete with Netflix or Hulu or HBO Now or whoever.
 
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This is such an odd argument.

Company offers ability to stream video from partners at zero cost to customer. The caveat to this service is all video is compressed at a lower rate to A) Facilitate less stress on network (good thing) B) Lower cost to user since non-partner video services will still be charged but now at a lower rate since the video is being scaled down to 480. The company offers an opt-out option to this service if the customer wants full uncompressed video but will be charged for the amount of data to use as well as put more stress on the wireless network (bad thing).

The only "favorites" the company is playing is those video services who are willing to use company's compression technology since it's utilizing an approved way of providing video at a lower cost.

This is all kinds of customer focused except maybe for the fact the company enabled the service by default but I can't fault that company because the feature enabled saves the customer money....

It's ridiculous we are even discussing this.
 
In this case, anyone streaming service who is not paying T-Mobile is disadvantaged due to data caps.
Opting in to Binge on requires no monetary subscription to TMO. As far as I can tell, all it takes is agreeing to some pretty simple terms, the biggest of which is allowing TMO's servers to know where the traffic is coming from (ie, your site). Nobody is paying TMO to have their content be a part of Binge on.
 
This is such an odd argument.

Company offers ability to stream video from partners at zero cost to customer. The caveat to this service is all video is compressed at a lower rate to A) Facilitate less stress on network (good thing) B) Lower cost to user since non-partner video services will still be charged but now at a lower rate since the video is being scaled down to 480. The company offers an opt-out option to this service if the customer wants full uncompressed video but will be charged for the amount of data to use as well as put more stress on the wireless network (bad thing).

The only "favorites" the company is playing is those video services who are willing to use company's compression technology since it's utilizing an approved way of providing video at a lower cost.

This is all kinds of customer focused except maybe for the fact the company enabled the service by default but I can't fault that company because the feature enabled saves the customer money....

It's ridiculous we are even discussing this.

How does it save the customer money? I can see it saving TMo money.....

Scenario 1 - I have a TMo with unlimited data :) No need for Binge
Scenario 2 - I have TMo with a limited amount of data and elect to use Binge but only for a select few streaming sites. ;) Now I am stuck with all sites being "Binged" in quality and resolution. Lame and it is not saving me any money HOWEVER it is degrading my enjoyment and experience.

Lastly - lets say you owned a video streaming service and provided your subscribers with 1080 video 24/7. TMo comes by and offers you to be a part of Binge. You decline due to the dislike of 480. So now for any Binge user, TMo re-resolutions your video which you declined from, doesn't ask for permission and could care less when you start getting crappy reviews.

Still not seeing how the customer is saving money .... Oh I know!!! Those customers who have extremely limited plans... and are not likely to be streaming anyway.

Sorry, not seeing your point. :cool:
 
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