T-Mobile's Ultra-Hip CEO Not So Ultra-Hip When It Comes To His Clumsy, Status Quo Opposition To Net Neutrality
from the phony-baloney dept
Ever since regulators rejected AT&T's dodgy acquisition justifications for the T-Mobile deal, T-Mobile has taken on new life, disrupting the wireless sector with a number of consumer-friendly policies that have included dismantling the traditional subsidized phone model. A big part of that consumer-friendly attitude has come in the form of CEO John Legere, whose often hilarious foul-mouthed tirades, Twitter rants and faux-punk rock attitude are a welcome change from the mindlessly-optimistic and rote recitations of most CEOs.At the same time, more than a few people have pointed out over the last year that Legere (whose career started with a twenty-year stretch at AT&T and a notably more stodgy stint as Global Crossing's CEO) is really just performing a cartoon caricature whose revolutionary spirit only goes so far. Prime examples are not only the company's private admissions that it's loathe to compete on price, but also Legere's un-nuanced positions on net neutrality, illustrating the CEO is immeasurably more status quo than his persona would have the tech industry believe.
Earlier this year, T-Mobile announced with great fanfare they'd be exempting the most popular music services from the wireless company's usage caps. We were quick to point out that while perhaps appealing superficially to consumers, this practice violates net neutrality by giving larger, more popular services a leg up over smaller, less-known competitors. T-Mobile was also criticized by Public Knowledge for exempting speedtests from the company's caps in order to mask the company's throttling practices. At the time, Legere was "genuinely surprised" by the criticism, arguing that because nobody was paying T-Mobile to bypass the caps -- it wasn't a neutrality violation.
Fast-forward to this week, and Legere is showing again that he really doesn't understand what fundamental net neutrality is really about. Responding to the President's surprise unequivocal support of Title II reclassification, Legere went on quite a Twitter tirade about the perils of "overzealous" regulation, proclaiming that weaker, legally-dubious Section 706 rules were better than the Title II approach, because, well, "innovation!"
Don’t let the gov’t kill innovation. It has made us the fastest growing wireless company in America. #netneutrality
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) November 10, 2014
9/ I favor the 706 version, if regulated, because... did I mention how much I love innovation?!
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) November 11, 2014
"Here’s how it works. T-Mobile offers access to areas of the Net to its users for a fixed fee per month. So for €5, for instance, a user may be able to use Spotify for the month; he or she can browse the open Internet at night for €10; and it can access DT’s IPTV for €3.20 per DAY. It looks like an a la carte cable company menu and it just breaks every possible rule and/or understanding of the way the Internet should be priced and nurtured."While T-Mobile US's efforts are decidedly less ham-fisted than this, they're no less of an example of a carrier using arbitrary usage caps to fiddle with the user experience to its own ends. It's also a prime example of how easily people can be fooled into signing off on neutrality violations under the guise of creative pricing, and how rules need to be very clear in prohibiting this kind of behavior -- regardless of whether or not it's presented under a shiny veneer of purportedly consumer-friendly, ultra-hip paint.
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Filed Under: broadband, competition, john legere, net neutrality, open internet, regulations, section 706, title ii, wireless
Companies: t-mobile
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The problem is that while my friends switched from AT&T and their phones could utilize the T Mobile network, Verizon phones can't (different technology.) So I would get the $100 a month plan, but still have to buy the phones (which of course they build into your monthly payment.) End of the day, I save zero money in switching to T Mobile.
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Just spend the dime to get a new phone, sell the other on Ebay. At least then you can go to other carriers (aside from the only two using CDMA) without swapping phones.
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The sales guy started out that pitch, saying he would save me about $80 a month. Dumb people may actually believe that. We walked through the extra charges and the monthly bill would come out to about the same.
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Twitter rants and faux-punk rock attitude
Drilling down into the “hilarious foul-mouthed tirades” link leads us to: “John Legere: How The T-Mobile CEO Is Poised To Make Millions After Bringing The Company Back From The Dead”, by Steve Kovach, Business Insider, June 2014
Is it Ultra-Hip to be cynical?
Can any dude get branded as both Ultra-Hip and punk? Does an Ultra-Hip punk get laid more often? Are Ultra-Hip punks cynical?
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T-Mobile has clear net neturality violation right in their TOS
> UNLIMITED 4G LTE data (includes up to 5 GB of Smartphone Mobile HotSpot (SMH) service)
http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/individual.html
It's a clear prioritization / discrimination of certain traffic and an obvious violation of net neutrality.
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Holy Shit
Could somebody see about supplying them with some tunnels?
There's got to be a better way to hook up. This is only going to escalate.
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If they thought, for even a second, that they could get away with something like that in the US, they would do it.
Likely the only thing holding them back from rolling out a 'payment plan' just like this in the US is knowing that it's blatantly broken enough that even the 'see no evil hear no evil' regulators would have to crack down unless they wanted to abandon all pretense of being on the public's side.
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Innovative pricing and limitation schemes that is.
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The WiFi Bypass
Brendan Greeley, What Wi-Fi's Popularity Means for Cell Phone Carriers, Business Week, January 02, 2014
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-02/what-wi-fis-popularity-means-for-cell-phone-carr iers
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