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EFF: T-Mobile "Binge On" Is Just Throttling of All Data (eff.org)
onedobb writes: Tests confirm that when Binge On is enabled, T-Mobile throttles all HTML5 video streams to around 1.5Mps, even when the phone is capable of downloading at higher speeds, and regardless of whether or not the video provider enrolled in Binge On. This is the case whether the video is being streamed or being downloaded—which means that T-Mobile is artificially reducing the download speeds of customers with Binge On enabled, even if they're downloading the video to watch later. It also means that videos are being throttled even if they're being watched or downloaded to another device via a tethered connection.
I don't recall anyone asking for anything for free.
A big part of the problem here is that many don't offer unlimited data at ANY price, and when you do find someone that does, they often try to bog it down with fine print like this or just flat out cut you off if you use too much of your "unlimited" service.
Now, people don't expect truly "UNLIMITED" data. They can oversell just fine, but the problem is that they're overselling with the thought that a user should only use 0.05% of the actual stated bandwidth that they COULD use. Anyone that dares go above that is "cheating" and abusing the system.
10-15 years ago they could kinda sorta get away with that, but now streaming content is everywhere. People who don't know what bandwidth even is can consume huge chunks of it - completely legally - with Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, Twitch, Sling, Spotify, Pandora, etc.
The telecom companies 10-15 years ago should have realized that those "excessive" users from that era were the future norm and built out their network accordingly. Don't stamp your feet and demand that progress stop.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I work in marketing and advertising by turns these days (seems like every career trajectory eventually ends up somewhere in this playground, whether near top or bottom of the food chain), so I have to admit guilt here as well.
There is a tendency to operate with the goal of eliminating negative and limiting language because, surprise surprise, positive language tests out well in actual conversion numbers. But there is unquestionably an element of half-truth in it.
"slowed down and degraded to reduce data use" becomes "optimized for mobile"
"we've raised our prices" becomes "we've changed our plans to offer the best possible value to our customers"
"we've removed a bunch of features that raised costs for us" becomes "we've streamlined our service for ease of use"
"we've slashed our support staff" becomes "we're enabling you to find answers more quickly with our self-help area"
"we've eliminated our warranty" becomes "our product is so reliable that it's made warranties obsolete"
and so on.
It's not the actual policy that's the problem. It's that language is Orwellian. Bad becomes good. "Optimization" is supposed to be a good thing. But in this case, the customer's presumption that "optimized" equals "good for me" is actually not true; the word is being used in opposition to its conventional connotation.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Well, to begin with, can you please advise what "optimization" is taking place?
Video streamed to your cell phone is encoded to a bitrate for cell phone screens, which is usually around 700-1200kbit/s. T-Mobile throttles to 1500kbit/s, preventing excessive buffering (i.e. keeping your phone from downloading 8 minutes of a 10 minute video in the first few seconds), reducing total transfer (when people stop watching a video halfway through, they're only buffered up to maybe 30 seconds past that) and instantaneous bandwidth usage (100 people jumping onto Youtube all at once aren't suddenly using 9 gigs/sec).
In other words: You only need ~1.5Mbit/s to stream video to your cell phone, so they decrease network congestion and total transfer costs by throttling the bandwidth for video streams to 1.5Mbit/s. This allows the quality of the streaming service to remain as expected (bandwidth is higher than streaming video bitrate) and enforces predictable network utilization by this particular application, thus allowing more reliable cost projections and decreasing the risk of cost overages, which allows T-Mobile to provide the service at a lower price (in this case, bluntly unlimited video streaming, because the cost of the average number of streaming users times 1.5Mbit/s is less than the service cost of providing unlimited video streaming, and there will be zero overages from this group of users).
They could provide full-speed, unlimited video streaming. They'd have to A) charge more; or B) wait for infrastructure build-outs, then not increase their network speed (just throttle *everything*). In other words: they'd have to match the price of the service to the cost of the service.
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... And it costs me nothing to stream it to my phone. I don't care how they do it. It works great.
Move on to the next 'outrage'.