T-Mobile CEO Apologizes for “Offending” EFF and Its Supporters
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I'm going to attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow that he may have been unfamiliar with the EFF and had suspected that they represented primarily the interests of T-Mobile's competitors rather than individuals.
Also, I think that while Binge On was announced and promoted in a dishonest way, there is room for people who agree on the importance of net neutrality to disagree on whether such a program has a place on a neutral internet.
https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/open-lett...
I am less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt because what I see as intentional decietful statements:
> Can you imagine the disappointment, if people saw our TV commercials about Binge On, then went to watch 10 hours of video expecting it to be free, and only THEN learned that they needed to go into their settings to activate this new benefit? That’s how the Carriers would do it, but not T-Mobile. Everyone has it from day 1, period.
> But here’s the thing, and this is one of the reasons that Binge On is a VERY “pro” net neutrality capability -- you can turn it on and off in your MyTMobile account – whenever you want. Turn it on and off at will.
First he claims the they just HAD to opt everyone in because lots of people won't figure how to opt in/out.
Then the claims is it VERY "pro" net neutrality because everyone can easily opt in/out. No wonder he thinks 'right now some people may be confused'.
The majority of people will not know/remember that Binge On exists when they encounter the throttling. This means any any service that wants to offer High Definition video will need to educate each customer on the specific opt-out steps for that customer's Carrier/MVNO and operating system.
What happens when different versions of a crappy MVNO's settings app has the opt-out toggle in a different spot in their menu tree with a different name?
> that's a perfectly reasonable path in my opinion
T-Mobile is a pretty consumer friendly company and I really appreciate what they have done for the US Carrier market. However signaling to other Carriers and MVNOs that these kinds of programs are acceptable takes us towards a path that is very bad for Net Neutrality.
Unfortunate it was the EFF he thought this of, but his defense of binge on seems well reasoned and isn't surrounded in the normal corporate speak that usually comes from the CEO of a big company.
In practice, BingeOn appears to be a program where you get free traffic if you agree to be throttled to 1.5Mbps. That is not a net neutrality violation at all. That's a perfectly sane product for an ISP to offer. They should have just skipped the Netflix and video rhetoric (and have it apply to all traffic, but that is really of little consequence).
But who cares. Net Neutrality was supposed to be a means to an end (a fair and open internet). What Tmobile is doing isn't a challenge to the end.
In the long fight for net neutrality many proponents have begun to think about net neutrality as the end itself.
Who cares. Leave Tmo alone. They are disrupting the mobile carrier market.
Yes, it is a direct challenge to the free and open internet. It closes mobile internet towards a specific use (HD video) based on the decision of a third party who does not know if HD video is needed or desired. The high bitrate could be critical to the application in question (for example a medical video consultation, a collaborative image editing tool, or some as-yet un-invented use that may now never happen)
T-mobile could disrupt the mobile carrier market by pushing for open protocols by which the client or server can indicate that lower bitrate videos (or lower resolution images) are acceptable or preferred.
Not to mention the fact that each Carrier/MVNO requiring a startup to implement their specific technical requirements to be eligible for Zero Rating has a direct, negative impact on competition.
it's exactly what's being discussed.
imagine you're Google or Netflix, you have auto adapting streaming, so your clients can see a video in real time at 1.5mbps, though low quality. now your competitor had only HD streaming because it is prepared for a market where everyone have 4G so it assumes 2mbps and up. now a isp just decided it's impossible to whatch real time video on that service, which may have been the reason i signed up for internet access in the first place!
Case closed.
If you agree that Net Neutrality is important on mobile, then you by definition agree that it is important to not have across the content based throttling or degradation decided by a 'third party' (i.e. not the client or server).
Why does this matter?
If this sort of program becomes standard, the available market for those wishing to offer high definition mobile video will be highly constrained by the increased friction of educating people how to opt-out (not all carriers will make this as easy as T-Mobile). This doesn't have to be Netflix, it could be a remote Doctor using WiFi to stream High Definition video of an ongoing surgery to get an emergency consult from a Specialist via his phone or hotspot.
There are times when "incredibly high resolution rates that are barely detectable by the human eye" are incredibly important and it should not up to T-Mobile to decide when that is. It should be up to the client and/or the server (and it should be done via an open protocol.)
They may not filter you, but I'm sure they pressured you to make this apology.
Strangely, even a HUGE supporter of net neutrality, this doesn't bother me very much. Maybe it's because to me, Netflix is SO big, that this looks very similar to a peering agreement.
T-Mobile is just peering with netflix, and because of their agreement, will route data between their networks for free.
Although that is probably the sheep's clothing that the destruction of the open web will come dressed in.
Comcast would like nothing more than charge people more for using Netflix, because it's causing large load on their last mile connections that they have hopelessly oversubscribed while promising ever higher bandwidth. Netflix will peer and install cache appliances, but they aren't going to dig up the trenches in Kentucky to beef up the cable connections and backbones. As such, everything that will make Netflix perform better on Comcasts network will just lead to more Netflix use and more load on their last mile.
Meanwhile, they can't sell people a Binge-On because who the hell wants to watch Netflix at sub-DVD bitrates at home?
In return for zero rating the video data for the video providers in the BingeOn program, they agree to serve video with a fixed highest bitrate, which saves on tower spectrum (which is far more important than whatever bandwidth consumption T-Mobile is experiencing at its peering points).
This makes sense. If you're a consumer who doesn't care about the bitrate being limited (assuming the highest bitrate is based on mobile device screen resolution), its not a problem. You get decent video quality on your device, T-Mobile doesn't have to work as hard at network management. If you want to opt out for whatever reason, there is a toggle switch to do so.
Its a clever solution to limited last-mile mobile connectivity.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles...
The opted-in throttling is especially dangerous for innovation on the internet because in one swoop it increases the difficulty of starting any service that depends on displaying high definition video on mobile. Not all high definition video is entertainment, so T-mobile has no way of knowing if 'incredibly high resolution rates that are barely detectable by the human eye' are needed or not.
> Its a clever solution to limited last-mile mobile connectivity.
No, it's a slipshod and disingenuous solution to the limited last-mile mobile connectivity that violates Net Neutrality in two different ways: Zero Rating and content specific Throttling.
The value of Net Neutrality is open for debate, but T-Mobile is now flat out lying about their support of it:
> T-Mobile is a company that absolutely supports Net Neutrality and we believe in an open and free Internet.
https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/open-lett...
If T-mobile wanted to solve this problem while respecting Net Neutrality, they could have worked with content networks and other carriers to develop an open standard for marking video stream network data as amendable to throttling.
Whatabouts a flag to indicate that throttling will gracefully degrade? QoS tool's best friend?
At least that's what I would've expected for straight-talking CEO that portrayed himself out to be.
This isn't news.
This isn't interesting.
This isn't thought-provoking.
It's just drama.
We're not in high school anymore. We can cut the drama, really, without any negative consequences.
Thanks, t-mo. I will continue to give you money instead of at&t.
First, Outrageous CEO generates a mild uproar, irritating nerds, and generating press. Irritated nerds tweet about T-Mobile, causing it to trend. Bonus: everyone is branded for several minutes by the big pink T in the background of the video.
Second, he issues the apology. TechCrunch article. Twitter. More press for T-Mobile and Binge On. Everyone opines on the matter as if any part of it is meaningful.
Next, he'll meet with the EFF and make a pledge to support them. More chatter, more branding, and now some goodwill to boot.
Net result: Everyone is talking about T-Mobile instead of their competitors.
- Donating in this situation sounds an awful lot like a shakedown. "Gee, what a nice mobile network you have. Donate $1M and we'll stop calling out your unfair network practices."
- That much corporate money could affect the psychology within EFF as well as people's trust of EFF.
I don't know if a dominant T-Mobile will be as pro-consumer, but as long as T-Mobile's taking shots at Verizon and being so loud about it, we benefit.