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.
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.