Streaming Video Company Drops Out Of BingeOn To Protest John Legere's Attack On EFF; It Will Still Get Throttled, Though

from the how's-that-pr-campaign-going,-john dept

Fri, Jan 8th 2016 10:37am — Mike Masnick

Well, this has really turned into quite a week for T-Mobile CEO John Legere, huh? First, his lies about BingeOn throttling were exposed. Then he doubled down on the lie insisting that BingeOn wasn't throttling despite clear evidence that it is. Then, he attacked EFF for exposing his lie. All the meanwhile, T-Mobile spokespeople were confirming that the company is, absolutely, slowing down all video traffic.

And it appears the fallout from this keeps spreading. Legere keeps touting the number of partner video companies that have signed up for BingeOn, but it appears that number needs to go down by one. The folks behind 4stream.tv have announced on Twitter that they're pulling out of the program directly in response to Legere's comments about EFF:

If you can't read that, it says:

Dear T-Mobile,

In light of recent events and comments made by your CEO, John Legere, we have decided to halt our participation in Binge On and disable our traffic shaping rules for the time being. As per the agreement, please consider this 24 hours notice that 4Stream.TV will no longer participate in the program.

As net neutrality supporters and EFF Members, we encourage you to be more honest and transparent about the issue and develop a program that we can be proud to participate in.

Kudos to Patrick Hampson and Aaron Zufall for making that decision.

Of course... the unfortunate truth, as we now know from all of this, is that even once they've decided not to participate in the program it doesn't change the fact that their videos will get throttled.

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Filed Under: 4stream, bingeon, john legere, net neutrality, zero rating
Companies: 4stream.tv, eff, t-mobile

25 Comments

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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2016 @ 10:51am

Termination in Progress...please wait while we reconfigure our setup...
How long before the executive committee is reduced by 1, even if temporarily?

Or is Deutsche Telekom AG laughing (maybe crying) too hard to act?
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Adam (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 11:23am

Throttled, yes but obvious.
The key was "disabling traffic shaping rules". What this means is that if T-mobile is throttling then video content will sputter and buffer when the connection is too slow. This temporary change will have minimal effect on streaming site but will have maximum effect on tmobile subscribers can't watch a damned thing on the service without constant buffering..
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PRMan, 8 Jan 2016 @ 11:30am

Re: Throttled, yes but obvious.
Which is what's happening if YouTube doesn't have a 480p or less version now.
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PR Twister, 8 Jan 2016 @ 11:36am

Re: Re: Throttled, yes but obvious.
Yes, thats what we call optimized!

We are helping you to optimize your time. Since you can't watch youtube videos you now have more time to do other things like walk in the park, have sex with another person, chat with people in person and many other things. This is our way of optimizing your time and ensuring you don't use our crappy network.
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DannyB (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 11:37am

Re: Termination in Progress...please wait while we reconfigure our setup...
Can't Douche Telekom AG simply be honest and transparent about its throttling?

Keep throttling videos. But just straight forwardly say that this is happening without BingeOn.

I would also suggest, if you don't know who the EFF is, then you can't very well claim to know much about the business you are in.
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crade (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 11:51am

The only possible optimizing here has nothing to do with tmobile. This is like saying you are helping your employees by cutting their salaries in half because then they can apply for welfare. Optimized!
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techflaws (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 12:03pm

Re: Termination in Progress...please wait while we reconfigure our setup...
Nope, they're the same greedy bastards. The CEO recently said he was considering making startups pay a fee to use "his" networks, which would only be fair.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2016 @ 12:16pm

At least this is made for mobile phones where the screen is too small to take advantage of the highest quality settings.

While I can see some positive intentions in this shaping, it is not their decission to make (opt-out makes it their decission, opt-in makes it a consumer decission! Legere ya listening?)! and it has several collateral damages (ie. download shaping) + is potentially in conflict with FCC rules.

Let the BingeOn developers answer the questions from now on to avoid this political defence when dealing with users and let people judge the program on the basis of facts.
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TechDescartes (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 12:23pm

Full Throttle
Well, this has really turned into quite a week for T-Mobile CEO John Legere, huh?
While normally I would say he's getting "throttled" by the public backlash, maybe it's more appropriate to say he's getting "optimized."
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Machin Shin (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 12:41pm

Re:
"At least this is made for mobile phones where the screen is too small to take advantage of the highest quality settings."

Hate to burst your bubble but 640×480 is a lot different than 1920x1080. Yes, my screen is only 5.5 inches but it is 2560x1440. So yeah, it can play a video at full 1080p and even if your eyesight sucks, I can still tell the difference in 480p and 1080p.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2016 @ 1:07pm

If the 4strem guys were truly supperters of net neutrality, they'd never have participated in a scheme designed to subvert net neutrality.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2016 @ 1:08pm

Re:
4stream; supporters, of course.

Note to self: don't type with your dick
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2016 @ 1:18pm

Re: Re:
I am not being specific here since I go on to blast them for basically anything else. I don't know if it automatically switch to 1080 p, 720 p, 480 p, 360 p, 240 p or 120 p from a throttling to 1,5 mbit/s on youtube or whatever you are referring to. Point is that the 4k options aren't worth it on a phone and arguably anything above 720 p is a bit more swag than wag with current mobile batteries and processors.

My eyesight does indeed suck which is part of why I don't stream on my phone. I am elitist enough to want a bigger screen and my cap on the mobile is too small for video anyway (my portable computer has a far larger screen, mobile net as an option and a decent battery. Why settle for greyskin?).
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2016 @ 1:19pm

Re: Re:
480P == 720 x 480
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tqk (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 2:44pm

Re: Full Throttle
While normally I would say he's getting "throttled" by the public backlash, maybe it's more appropriate to say he's getting "optimized."

Now, should we blame this on the English language for being mallable or on marketroids for learning English from George Orwell?
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TDR, 8 Jan 2016 @ 3:50pm

Legere's new program
It seems Legere is involved in a new program for T-Mobile. I think it's called "CarreOn".

CarreOn my wayward John
There'll be peace when you are gone
Put your throttling to rest
Dontcha whine no more
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Machin Shin (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 7:55pm

Re: Re: Re:
The point I was making is that while you personally might not notice or care there are indeed people out there who do care. Some people do enjoy watching their videos at a high resolution and the modern smart phone is more than able to handle it.
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Machin Shin (profile), 8 Jan 2016 @ 7:57pm

Re: Re: Re:
Yours is I guess better for this comparison. The resolution I used is technically correct as well it is just the other form factor.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2016 @ 4:12am

Wasn't there something in the article about T-Mobile's CEO whining on YouTube, that you actually get the full high quality stream through anyway so it didn't actually save data?

Is this true and can anyone explain how that works?

That alone would make anything T-Mobile does or say a steaming pile of dung and their maybe useful "service" for some users turns into sabotage of a product without any payoff for anyone but T-Mobile.
That would be like a transport company deliberately throwing out a few TV's from a delivery and still expect the customer to pay full price for delivery and all the TV's while the company who makes the TV's, and uses the transport company for delivery, get's the shitty reputation.

In the real world, that transport company would get sued until they had paid off those discarded TV's and damages for lost sales and lost reputation.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2016 @ 6:37am

I'm a T-Mobile customer. I went into my account and turned Bing On (off). I have zero issues with streaming at full res. I don't see the big deal. You have an option and they tell you just about everything about the service on their website. Just something else people want to find reason to bitch about.
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Fin, 9 Jan 2016 @ 11:27am

Re:
Such a suspious comment.

The problem is lack of transparency and a dick of a ceo taking the piss out of his customers
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chilling farts, 9 Jan 2016 @ 12:15pm

Re: Re: dick
When people act like dicks, it deserve to be written by one.

Inside peru we saw worse behavior. New vietnamese operator (Bitel) is acting in the same way than T-Mobile, but in favor of copyright monopoly with their own streaming plans (APDAYC, peruvian version of the RIAA) while strangle the rest of net with their data caps.
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tqk (profile), 9 Jan 2016 @ 7:08pm

Re: Re:
Such a suspious comment.

The problem is lack of transparency and a dick of a ceo taking the piss out of his customers

I didn't think it was suspicious. I read it as just another data point. It's odd that "the experience" isn't consistent across all users.

I do think it's ridiculous that the head of an organization selling connectivity has such entitlement issues and thinks so poorly of those who're buying his organization's services, but that's to be expected from psychopathic corporate heads (are there any other kind?) nowadays.

Aside, what does "taking the piss out of his customers" even mean? Is that British slang or something, and where's it come from? I can't imagine anyone wanting to do that nor imagine what their motivation to do so could be.
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Scott, 9 Jan 2016 @ 7:31pm

its free and can be turned off
How is that throttling?
Get serious you can stream music and video basically for free and you call it throttling Of course you can turn it off and pay for the data if you prefer. I feel so sorry for people getting free data and complaining. lol "WAH WAH I get free data but I have to bithch about something"

Sheesh
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klaus (profile), 13 Jan 2016 @ 2:52am

Re: Re: Re:
"what does "taking the piss out of his customers" even mean? Is that British slang or something"

It is indeed British. Piss to the British is like snow to the Eskimo. Think rain; in Britain it's always pissing it down. However in this instance:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=taking+the+mickey
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