T-Mobile CEO John Legere attacks EFF after he lies about BingeOn throttling

[Scorpus]

T-Mobile is copping a serious amount of flak over their BingeOn service after the EFF discovered it simply throttles all video traffic to 1.5 Mbps, without performing any of the "optimization" it claims to do.

In response to the analysis by the EFF, T-Mobile CEO John Legere has come out and publicly attacked the organization through a video posted on Twitter. Legere claimed that BingeOn selects an "appropriate bitrate to optimize to the mobile device", before saying "who the fuck are you, anyway, EFF? Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?"

.@EFF pic.twitter.com/pv6V4oOJwS

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) January 7, 2016

As the CEO of a major telecom company, Legere should definitely be aware of who the EFF are, considering their important role in securing digital rights for consumers. And it turns out he does, after admitting it several hours later in what he claims "is not a personal campaign against the EFF."

Legere also released a video on YouTube claiming that some organizations were "confusing consumers" over what BingeOn does to video streams, before himself confusing 'throttling' for 'optimization'. In the video, Legere said any claims of T-Mobile throttling video streams are "bullshit", despite a ton of evidence to the contrary, while spouting the data cap free benefits of BingeOn.

It seems that instead of addressing valid criticism and concerns over BingeOn, including complaints from consumers that high-definition video streams from YouTube are essentially unplayable over fast data connections, Legere only wants to attack critics. Perhaps this isn't the best move, considering regulators might come down hard on his network for what definitely is throttling.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/63400-t-mobile-ceo-john-legere-attacks-eff.html

 

[RustyTech]

First, I'm not a proponent of t-mobile and at this time don't use their network, however, what's all this hatting that's happening??
t-mobile releases unlimited media data usage for PHONES ONLY and a few people decide that's not enough? Well that's good and all, but how about attacking all the networks, since they all throttle and charge you an insane amount for data.

And who is EFF? They are a nobody. What rights have they protected? Or should I say whose? If they want to do something useful, work on bringing back unlimited data to all networks.

 

[oldikes]

When T-Mobile offers some amazing value for consumers and they would rather complain about it instead...

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

People just find anything to complain about in today's world... A bunch of p**sie*.... T-mobile break their face once again and just do Unlimited Video Stream at any quality. That should shut them all up and force other carriers to step it up.

 

[Puiu]

First, I'm not a proponent of t-mobile and at this time don't use their network, however, what's all this hatting that's happening??
t-mobile releases unlimited media data usage for PHONES ONLY and a few people decide that's not enough? Well that's good and all, but how about attacking all the networks, since they all throttle and charge you an insane amount for data.

And who is EFF? They are a nobody. What rights have they protected? Or should I say whose? If they want to do something useful, work on bringing back unlimited data to all networks.

It's because instead of optimising high bitrate video, as it claims, it just throttles the bandwidth and it makes the videos buffer for ages. it's false advertising to hide something that is now allowed by the FCC.
Normally "video optimisations" means reencoding the video to a lower bitrate, not blocking the video from working properly.

And why the hell are you protecting a company that is as hated as T-Mobile? Do you also like the devil or something?

 

[yRaz]

1.5mbps is plenty to stream 480p video, why are they complaining? Who needs to watch HD videos in their phone? And it's not like you have to use their binge on service if you don't want to. This whole thing seems silly.

 

[mattfrompa]

First, I'm not a proponent of t-mobile and at this time don't use their network, however, what's all this hatting that's happening??
t-mobile releases unlimited media data usage for PHONES ONLY and a few people decide that's not enough? Well that's good and all, but how about attacking all the networks, since they all throttle and charge you an insane amount for data.

And who is EFF? They are a nobody. What rights have they protected? Or should I say whose? If they want to do something useful, work on bringing back unlimited data to all networks.

As an EFF member, I strongly disagree with your assessment. Though it seems from your comments that you are more upset than anything. If you are genuinely interested in what good the EFF has already done for people like us, I encourage you to poke around their website, and past episodes of podcasts like This Week in Law, on the TWIT network. The EFF is brought up concerning numerous topics, and I think you will be pleased with what you see/hear. Bringing back unlimited data is not a simple request, and I think you will see why if you do as I suggested above. All members of this site owe it to themselves to check out eff.org and see the information they have to offer.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

WTF is this guys problem. We don't want everything free anyway! We just want a reasonable price for good, reliable service. I switched to TMo from VZW nearly two years ago and was very happy for awhile. However I think so many people switched to TMo that their network has gotten way slower. It was great at first (better than VZW for me, in fact) but now it is starting to become unreliable for me. All these uncarrier strategies are starting to get ridiculous. At first it was great, but now he is just going overboard. Just give us a good network and a good price, don't gouge and surprise people with charges and then leave it the hell alone. I'm about to switch to a third-party provider because frankly the prices aren't that great now anyway.

 

[Panda218]

1.5mbps is plenty to stream 480p video, why are they complaining? Who needs to watch HD videos in their phone? And it's not like you have to use their binge on service if you don't want to. This whole thing seems silly.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who feels this way...

I am a Tmobile user and have zero complaints. I've tried streaming video with BingeOn enabled and Disable and I honestly don't see a difference, but I'm also only watching 360p and 480p videos over a mobile network cause I see no point in watching HD videos on a 5" screen. I'll save those for my home theater system and 55" TV.

 

[Greg S]

1.5mbps is plenty to stream 480p video, why are they complaining? Who needs to watch HD videos in their phone? And it's not like you have to use their binge on service if you don't want to. This whole thing seems silly.

480p pretty much looks like fuzzy drawings by a 3 year old on QHD displays. I'll keep my 45mbps LTE connection even if I have to pay double the price. At least I'm getting more than double the quality and speed.

 

[yRaz]

480p pretty much looks like fuzzy drawings by a 3 year old on QHD displays. I'll keep my 45mbps LTE connection even if I have to pay double the price. At least I'm getting more than double the quality and speed.

well streaming QHD to your phone would eat up your monthly data allotment in probably a few hours. And maybe people should consider the fact that it isn't logistically practical to stream HD/4k over wireless networks when buying a phone. It's not t-mobiles fault that the network infustructure doesn't exist to give all their customers access to hd or 4k over LTE. Further, phones are not televisions, they're phones. If you want to eat into your data plan and stream movies at full bandwidth, you can already do that with T-Mobile. They just provided all of their customers with a way to watch all the video they want at no extra cost and the customers are mad?

Maybe people should stop buying these stupid screen resolutions on phones. And 480p looks just fine on my s6. I don't even want to watch movies on that tiny screen. Who are these people that want to spend hours watching HD content on 5" screens? You can get a nice TV for the price of a phone and high speed broadband for less than the cost of a data plan. Are we so addicted to television that we start to snap out at other people when we don't have access to it? I spent the first 10 years of my life without a television, and seeing how big of an issue this non-issue is I'm glad of it.

First World Problems.

 

[drjekelmrhyde]

You guys don't get it. If I have binge on on my phone, Youtube SHOULD NOT GO TO 480p(since it's not a partner of T-mobile), but it does. Only the partner sites should go to 480p and not count against my data plan. With Binge on every video site go to it even if the site don't even reverts to 480p by default(that's the buffering). One more thing: This should be OP IN not OP OUT(same shiat with Apple's WiFi Assist).