Binge On seems like a genuinely useful feature for getting more value out of a data plan, but T-Mobile has done a terrible job with the rollout.
1) They were completely misleading about what the technology actually does. It is without a doubt "throttling". I can understand and accept them wanting to use the word "optimization" instead of "throttling" in their marketing, but there also should have been a clear "how it works" section somewhere on their site for customers who wanted to know what they were signing up for.
2) It should have been opt-in rather than opt-out. There are a lot of customers out there (maybe even a majority) who don't use anywhere near their allotted data caps each month or who pay for unlimited data. These customers are going to experience buffering and reduced video quality, without getting any of the benefits of Binge On in return, and automatically opting them in is not in their best interest.
3) T-Mobile should "zero-rate" all video streams that they detect and throttle, as opposed to only zero-rating streams from select partners. Clearly they have both the ability to detect when a user is streaming video, regardless of source, and the network capacity to support unlimited streaming at 1.5 mbps - so this should be technically feasible. Zero-rating all detected video traffic would keep them from getting tangled up in thorny net neutrality issues and would keep the likes of the FCC, EFF, and Google off their backs.
Virtually nobody is going to care about throttling you can turn off yourself. They probably shouldn't have defaulted it on, but 1080p video over LTE is a shitty use of network resources.
I'm more pissed off they were advertising free video streaming yet it's only on the more expensive data plan. I burnt through my data allotment at the airport in a single afternoon because I believed the advertising.
...but 1080p video over LTE is a shitty use of network resources...
Agreed, but if you spend any time in the dens of the cordcutters, this was a key part of their plan. Not saying it was a smart plan, just their plan and why they're so upset now.
I totally don't blame TMO for doing what they did to preserve tower time from the hogs, but their execution was pretty lousy.
I had been keeping T-Mobile because I wanted a GSM carrier in the US that wasn't AT&T. I get pretty terrible coverage in my semi-rural area, but I liked their policies. Now I'm less sure what to think.
What phone do you have? If it's a new phone that support band 12 (700 mhz), your semi-rural area may have perfect LTE coverage now. My grandparents just got a new phone and they have data coverage for the first time ever, but I'm on an iPhone 6 that doesn't support band 12, so I don't get data when I'm there.
I'm actually permanently roaming on Iowa Wireless but keeping my T-Mobile account from when I lived elsewhere. I do have LTE right now at work, but visiting the in-laws 15 miles away quickly turns it into a 2g or 0 signal scenario.
For those not wanting to call them, just log in to your T-Mobile account, click on Profile, go to Media settings and turn off Binge On (should be the first item).
I'm just wondering why they would turn it on for me even though I'm on their unlimited data plan??
> For those not wanting to call them, just log in to your T-Mobile account, click on Profile, go to Media settings and turn off Binge On (should be the first item).
FWIW, it was under the "Phone controls" heading for me. I have the Unlimited Data & Int Text plan, which is always a special snowflake when it comes to these things.
Is video most of the times streamed over http? Couldn't find much on this except for some SO-Posts. If delivered via https (resource-intensive I guess?!) wouldn't this eliminate their ability to touch the video?
Video is quickly moving to https, just like everything else. But that traffic can still be identified and throttled, with the point of the throttling being to get the server to lower the bitrate.
(And how would you identify the traffic? There's a couple of ways I can think of. One is that you can still identify the hostname from the SSL connection, even if you don't get the content type or the URL. Then there's the server IP; you could use any plaintext requests to learn that it's a source of video streaming, and then apply that knowledge to encrypted request. Another possibility are the request / response patterns. For a video stream you'll probably be getting requests at a very regular interval all of which result in a response of roughly the same size. Other kinds of traffic won't look like that.
Called. Told them to turn it off. Other customers should do the same. It's not fair to prioritize traffic on the public internet. Small businesses suffer.
Amusingly, this doesn't prioritize. It simply throttles all video streams to < 1.5Mbps (dvd quality).
Arguably by selectively only "optimizing" their opted-in providers wouldn't they be in a position where they're making some streams "faster" (not to mention free) and open to action by the FCC?
1) They were completely misleading about what the technology actually does. It is without a doubt "throttling". I can understand and accept them wanting to use the word "optimization" instead of "throttling" in their marketing, but there also should have been a clear "how it works" section somewhere on their site for customers who wanted to know what they were signing up for.
2) It should have been opt-in rather than opt-out. There are a lot of customers out there (maybe even a majority) who don't use anywhere near their allotted data caps each month or who pay for unlimited data. These customers are going to experience buffering and reduced video quality, without getting any of the benefits of Binge On in return, and automatically opting them in is not in their best interest.
3) T-Mobile should "zero-rate" all video streams that they detect and throttle, as opposed to only zero-rating streams from select partners. Clearly they have both the ability to detect when a user is streaming video, regardless of source, and the network capacity to support unlimited streaming at 1.5 mbps - so this should be technically feasible. Zero-rating all detected video traffic would keep them from getting tangled up in thorny net neutrality issues and would keep the likes of the FCC, EFF, and Google off their backs.