Despite the ubiquitous Wi-Fi sign wherever we find ourselves, our love of streaming video takes its toll on our monthly mobile data plan limits. To resolve this first world problem, T-Mobile had the great idea of creating a new smartphone service called ‘Binge On’ that optimizes video on popular services such as Netflix, Hulu, and HBO without using up our monthly data plan.
From my friends and colleagues with families that have been using this Binge On plan, they are all for it and believe there is no reason for them to ever move to another carrier from T-Mobile. So great idea right?Everyone was happy until now when then widely respected consumer rights group The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that T-Mobile’s “optimization” plan was not the free lunch that it was claiming to be. In fact, it was just throttling all video traffic to a slower speed that would then prevent users from viewing high-resolution videos without getting an angry buffer face.
The reality is that the Binge On product seemed to stream web videos at a much lower quality including those on YouTube that weren’t even part of the data exempt list on the service. The all you can eat video data plan that was made to fit all our requirements turned out to be a slowed down inferior service according to an Electronic Frontier Foundation study which revealed that T-mobile was reducing the quality of all video streams for Binge On users. The Foundation said in it’s report:
“Throttling all traffic based on application type definitely violates the principles of net neutrality”
The T-Mobile CEO John Legere didn’t take it too well and
“Who the f*** are you anyway EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)? Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?”
The he went on to say:
“We give customers more choices, and these jerks are complaining? Who the hell do they think they are?”
Although Mr. Legere further attempted to set the record straight in his unique style via a series of videos, however, he only ended up making matters worse. Despite claiming that he supported Net Neutrality and an open and free Internet, a throttled mobile network at the core of the Binge On plan that changes the rules clearly says otherwise.
T-Mobile’s Binge On is switched-on by default like their CEO’s curse filter and this led many customers to feel that T-Mobile’s actions were incredibly misleading. A healthy amount of backtracking and apologies for an expletive-laden rant on Twitter ensued along with an open letter to consumers on the network’s blog hammering home the point that the service is a free benefit to all T-Mobile customers.
Although free unlimited data is indeed a positive service for the consumers, this use of throttling of services outside of their core plan such as of YouTube for example, is ultimately allowing Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) to choose the streaming sites that succeed and the ones that do not. Content providers should not get a faster Internet stream over another just because a contract that is in place.
We are now firmly in the digital age and expect to be online 24/7 without giving it a second thought, now that the internet is seen as an essential utility along with power and water – to many people probably more important that power or water! While companies like Comcast are desperately clinging to business models of the past in order to protect their empire by imposing a 300 GB per month data cap on its users, it was somewhat refreshing to see T-Mobile, at least, attempting to address this problem.
Netflix states that streaming video in HD can use up approximately 3 GB of data every hour which means that a 300 GB per month data cap can be reached within a month by watching just 3 hours of HD streaming per day which for a shared household of 4 members is not a lot of video watching. In fact, I have not even counted the data usage for HD video game downloads over a console (Playstation, Wii, Xbox etc.) with multiple consoles inside of a home.
It’s not unusual for a household of 4 to have over ten networked devices between themselves, and this is only going to grow with the rise of Internet of Things (“IOT) and IOT enabled devices inside the smart home. This all illustrates why data caps are a thing of the past and why utilizing them will only slow down our overall digital and economic progress. T-Mobile, at least, tried to address the issues at hand and I cannot help but think that perhaps we should be directing our outrage towards those ISPs that are exploring monthly data caps, something that will be a much talked about topic as cord cutting gathers pace and ISP’s are tempted to impose such monthly data usage limits.
In that light, T-Mobile is at least attempting to offer customers a friendly solution. I am therefore happy to cut its controversial but likable CEO Mr. John Legere a little slack on this occasion, but that’s me. For me the bigger issue is monthly Data Usage Limits. What do you think?
Published on Retire.ly with permission from Anurag*