T-Mobile’s Binge On network feature has been getting a lot unwanted attention ever since it was introduced this fall. While Binge On promises that streaming video from select services will not count against your plan’s data limit, Google has noticed that T-Mobile has been reducing the quality of YouTube streams to its customers, even though YouTube isn’t Binge On-certified. Because “throttling” accusations have been flying across the web over the past few weeks, T-Mobile has released a statement to clear the waters:
Using the term “throttle” is misleading. We aren’t slowing down YouTube or any other site. In fact, because video is optimized for mobile devices, streaming from these sites should be just as fast, if not faster than before. A better phrase is “mobile optimized” or a less flattering “downgraded” is also accurate.
If you want to get around the “downgraded” video streams that have been “mobile optimized,” Binge On can be turned off within the My T-Mobile app by going to Profile > Multimedia settings. Most of T-Mobile’s “Un-carrier” moves have resulted in quite a bit of positive press for the company, so we’ll be waiting to see if they decide to roll the feature back or try to offer more granular options so that users know and have control over which streaming media services are being optimized for streaming over T-Mobile’s network.
What’s your take on T-Mobile’s Binge On?
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