John Legere Just Can't Stop The Misleading Bullshit About BingeOn

from the give-it-up,-john,-it's-over dept

The big story of last week was T-Mobile CEO John Legere’s meltdown over people calling out the bullshit claims about BingeOn “optimizing” mobile video when the truth is that it was simply throttling all video traffic (partners and non partners alike). Things got even worse when Legere decided to attack EFF and suggest that it was being paid to discredit BingeOn. The simple fact remains, however, that T-Mobile is throttling video streams (and downloads).

Legere briefly went quiet about all of this, but on Monday came out again with yet another statement in the form of an “Open Letter to Consumers about Binge On” which is at least a little more honest, but is still mostly misleading bullshit — the very thing T-Mobile has built its recent reputation on avoiding.

We invented Binge On to provide customers with an easy and effective way to stretch their data bucket. Knowing that the number one (and climbing) use of data out there is video, it was obviously the natural place to focus. Binge On is like an economy button built into a new car to save gas, and it?s a benefit that customers got the minute we launched, to use it as much as they want to. Period.

Again that sounds good but is totally misleading. First of all, it’s T-Mobile that sets the data buckets in the first place. So relieving consumers of the burden that T-Mobile itself placed on consumers is not a consumer-friendly move. It’s punching someone and then claiming you’re being nice by offering them a hand to get them off the ground. If you start the anti-consumer practice, it’s not pro-consumer to roll back a tiny part of it.

Binge On is a FREE benefit given to all T-Mobile customers. It is and always has been a feature that helps you stretch your data bucket by optimizing ALL of your video for your mobile devices.

If this were truly a “benefit” then why does it also apply to unlimited accounts (like mine)? Unlimited account holders don’t need or want this “benefit” (and it’s not really much of a benefit as we’ll get to).

We use our proprietary techniques to attempt to detect all video, determine its source, identify whether it should be FREE and finally adjust all streams for a smaller/handheld device.  (Most video streams come in at incredibly high resolution rates that are barely detectable by the human eye on small device screens and this is where the data in plans is wasted).  The result is that the data in your bucket is stretched by delivering streamed video in DVD quality – 480p or better (whether you have a 2GB, 6GB or 10GB plan etc.) so your data lasts longer.  Putting aside the 38+ services for which we provide FREE data for video through Binge On, as discussed below ? this ?stretching? of your data bucket is estimated to allow you to watch UP TO 3X MORE VIDEO from your data plan than before. This is a huge step forward.

Again, it’s worth remembering that when T-Mobile launched this supposedly consumer-friendly offering, they completely hid the fact that it applied to all video, implying strongly that it only applied to partners. In fact, the company’s CTO argued that it was not even possible to identify many YouTube videos — a claim that turned out to be one of the many lies T-Mobile has spread over this mess.

Second, T-Mobile keeps claiming that most users can’t tell the difference between 480p videos and higher quality HD videos, but that’s bullshit. In many cases the difference in quality is quite obvious. And, again, if this was all about having your data “last longer” there would be no reason at all to turn it on for unlimited account holders.

Also note that T-Mobile is being a bit misleading here, as its original marketing on BingeOn noted that the free video streaming did not apply to accounts that had less than 3GB on their caps:

Next up, Legere continues to pretend that this is clearly a beneficial service that his customers wanted, despite many, many users saying that they wanted no such thing:

As with virtually all of our Un-carrier benefits, we immediately gave it to everyone! First we reached out to all of our customers via email and SMS message, and told them all about the new functionality that was coming their way. Then we turned it on, for everyone! So if you are a T-Mobile customer ? you already have Binge On!

Again, this makes absolutely no sense for unlimited accounts, and the fact that it’s not opt-in is just silly:

We strive to default all of our customer benefits to ?ON.? We don?t like to make customers dig around to find great new benefits — that is something a traditional carrier would do when they really hope you, the consumer, won?t take any action. 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.

So instead of making customers dig around to find this (which is not a “great new benefit”), they make customers dig around to find how to turn it off because they don’t want it. That’s exactly how the big carriers do things. And, once again, there’s simply no reason why it should ever be turned on for unlimited data users.

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. Customers are in control. Not T-Mobile. Not content providers. Customers. At all times.

This is what T-Mobile is banking on as the reason why it’s not violating the bright line rule against throttling in the FCC’s net neutrality rules — because there’s a small “out” in the rules, saying that the no throttling rule doesn’t apply to choices made by the end user to throttle traffic. Of course, that’s assuming a situation where the end user proactively decides to slow down certain types of traffic, not where it’s forced upon them, and there’s a convoluted process to opt-out of it.

Either way none of this addresses the actual concerns raised by many T-Mobile subscribers: T-Mobile lied. It said that it was “optimizing” the video when the truth is that it was just slowing down the video. It doesn’t change the fact that T-Mobile was far from transparent in explaining that this throttling (not optimizing) applied to all video, even with non-partner video. Finally, T-Mobile lied in insisting that this “optimization” would make videos load faster, when the reality is that for many video services it neither saves any data (the full file is downloaded, just slower), nor does it speed things up. Instead, it makes it buffer when there’s plenty of available bandwidth.

That’s what people are complaining about and T-Mobile ignores all of it, continuing to insist that BingeOn is nothing but a consumer friendly offering.

In the end, Legere gives a weak apology to the EFF that again fails to recognize why so many people took issue with his characterization of the EFF (“who the fuck are you? and who pays you?”) and pretends that it’s just about a difference of opinion:

I will however apologize for offending EFF and its supporters. Just because we don?t completely agree on all aspects of Binge On doesn?t mean I don?t see how they fight for consumers. We both agree that it is important to protect consumers’ rights and to give consumers value. We have that in common, so more power to them. As I mentioned last week, we look forward to sitting down and talking with the EFF and that is a step we will definitely take. Unfortunately, my color commentary from last week is now drowning out the real value of Binge On ? so hopefully this letter will help make that clear again.

The problem wasn’t “offending” EFF, it was that EFF did a good job exposing what T-Mobile is actually doing, and rather than responding to them, you freaked out, attacked them and their credibility and acted like they were some nobody shills. That’s not offensive, it’s stupid and raises serious questions about T-Mobile’s intentions.

Again, what is the “value” of BingeOn, other than throttling video down? Legere still keeps insisting things that aren’t really true at all. It’s too bad, because Legere had built up T-Mobile to be customer friendly and his reaction to this whole situation has done serious damage to that reputation.

Filed Under: bingeon, john legere, net neutrality, throttling
Companies: eff, t-mobile