
T-Mobile CEO to EFF: ‘Who the Fuck Are You?’ - tshtf
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/t-mobile-ceo-to-eff-who-the-fuck-are-you?utm_source=mbtwitter
======
Someone1234
We pay the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Consumers, geeks, and the
privacy/digital rights inclined. They're doing exactly what donors want them
to be doing, including this Binge On thing (which is part of a larger Net
Neutrality struggle).

I am a T-Mobile customer. And when they first introduced Binge On I was mostly
happy (Net Neutrality notwithstanding): seemed like a fair trade, for certain
sites you lost video bandwidth but in return received unlimited streaming.

However T-Mobile's implementation is bad and worse still they weren't honest
about what Binge On does. It is a completely different arrangement between
ONLY limiting sites that signed up, and interfering in third parties who did
not, and don't even get me started on limiting video file download rates (i.e.
not streaming).

The CEO is just acting like an idiot. Consumer rights groups, like the EFF,
are completely entitled to "stir things up" when large national corporations
start acting poorly. If you guys didn't want to be called out, perhaps you
could have been more honest to begin with? So as a T-Mobile customer, I am
100% behind EFF on this one. If they started attacking the EFF regularly I'll
change networks (e.g. Project Fi), because I value the EFF more than T-Mobile.

PS - Amazon's Smile.Amazon.com supports EFF donations, as an aside.

~~~
epistasis
I _really_ like the concept of the EFF, and _really_ like most of their work,
but when I was reading their blog I quickly started to feel like they go off
half-cocked too often. When I first saw summaries of their report my guess was
just that there in turning BingeOn on/off on a single account, or that there
were temporary configuration problems on T-Mobile's side.

Some people like the idea of supporting an out-there extreme to keep the
Overton window shifted to an appropriate place. I can see the logic in it, but
I value truth first.

T-mobile's CEO's schtick is to act like this, and I don't really appreciate
that much either, but I do appreciate T-mobile's small movements to make the
cell phone market more fluid by getting rid of contracts, and I also still
like BingeOn. It gives me more control over my data than Netflix or Amazon or
whomever gives me.

~~~
nivla
>when I was reading their blog I quickly started to feel like they go off
half-cocked too often.

While I am a fan of EFF and the work they do, I too have started to notice
this recently. The title of articles have become borderline click-bait and
sometimes conveniently omits vital information that may help better understand
the issue. The most recent one is "Stupid Patent of the Month: Microsoft’s
Design Patent on a Slider" [1] [2] which surprisingly is a lawsuit on a whole
lot more than just sliders.

However on this issue I am kind of split. I agree with both EFF and T-mobile.
As for T-mobile, BingeOn is optional and can be disabled anytime with just a
click, so it does little to nothing to hurt customers and cannot effectively
be called throttling. As for EFF, they have the right to be worried that this
may set a precedent for bigger control over your data in the future.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/stupid-patent-month-
mi...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/stupid-patent-month-microsofts-
design-patent-slider) [2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10802413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10802413)

~~~
tracker1
The fact that it's optional (enabled by default) does _not_ change the fact
that it is, indeed, throttling. There's also the fact that this throttling
(regardless of what they'd like to call it) was actually happening for video
services not included.

This is precisely the opposite of content neutrality, in that they're making
general internet traffic intentionally worse.

~~~
epistasis
Call it throttling, call it whatever you want. It makes my general internet
better.

The service is optional from all sides: both the consumer and the content
provider. It gives me, as a user of the general internet, more control over
what I do with the internet. Not less.

It may be better if there was RFC for devices to register their bandwidth
preferences that Netflix and other video services implemented, but there's
not. Perhaps BingeOn is a route towards that.

~~~
tunap
"Call it throttling, call it whatever you want. It makes my general internet
better"

Not mine. Sure Bloomberg, Wikipedia & other top-tier payers' windows open
fast, but I find most "not popular" sites hang and drag on opening new
tabs/windows... long enough for me to open a Bloomberg tab/window to "prime
the pump", so to speak. Tethering to a laptop, I can watch local library or
.gov window attempting to load with no in/out network traffic for 15-20
seconds. Everytime I open Bloomberg or Google, multiple previously loading
tabs/windows recommence instantaneously.

~~~
epistasis
How does that relate to the conversation? Who are you using for internet, and
what type of weird setup is it where they deliver packets after "priming the
pump"? That is not a throttling scheme, nor anything like BingeOn.

~~~
tunap
"Priming the pump" is an expreasion[1]. I am matching your favorable
experience on T-MOBILE with my differing experience. The discussion is
pertaining to Tmobile's throttling traffic, when non-prioritized traffic fails
I have found opening a prioritized connection resumes the former, as well.

[1]
[http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/prime+the+pump](http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/prime+the+pump)

------
etjossem
John Legere is the CEO of a multinational telecommunications company. Of
course he knows what the EFF is.

At first, he was just trying to explain BingeOn to T-Mobile customers in a
favorable way - "optimization for mobile devices to stretch the data available
on your plan." And that's exactly what an informed consumer should expect him
to say. You're not going to hear the words "reduced quality by default" or
"sweetheart deals with content providers" come from the mouth of a man with
fiduciary duty to T-Mobile.

But trying to discredit the EFF will blow up in his face. If auto company
execs feigned ignorance about Consumer Reports and Kelley Blue Book, we'd
laugh at them. It's a transparent way to avoid answering the questions these
consumer watchdog groups raise.

~~~
frik
> informed consumer

Even in this HN thread there are several persons who either work for T-Mobile
or are starry-eyed.

------
lambda
I love how he says that it's not throttling, while comparing it to economy
mode on a car. Which is, well, literal throttling to give you less performance
but better economy.

I would not mind them offering the feature if they were honest up front about
what it is. It is throttling; it is reducing the bandwidth available for
particular downloads, in order to use less or none of your data plan. Now,
there are still some net neutrality problems with the fact that certain
service providers use none of your data allowance while others do still count
against it.

But anyhow, why try to sell this as not throttling when that's exactly what it
is; throttling, but you get some benefit in that you don't have to pay as much
for those throttled streams?

------
mangeletti
IMHO, the CEO is being disingenuous.

I apologize in advance for this rant:

T-Mobile knows exactly what it's doing. If they had announced an open platform
with open specs for implementing low-bandwidth video, and then said "if you
have this, we'll use it", the end result would be that everyone could benefit
from an innovation of theirs.

Instead, they partnered up with the largest media providers to save themselves
and those media providers money on bandwidth. He's smart enough to know that
favoring companies that "have the technology to do this" really means favoring
large corporations, which is bad for the little guys.

If this wasn't true, there wouldn't be "50 new companies applying" to take
part in some application process to be approved... to be on their special
little Internet. By even having an application to be involved, they're
creating the framework for control and favoritism right from the start.

His creepy "we're just trying to help everyone and make the world a better
place" stuff is not fooling anyone. T-Mobile is in it for themselves and
themselves only. Keep your corruption away from our Internet and name your
service something other than "Internet".

~~~
jshevek
"His creepy "we're just trying to help everyone and make the world a better
place" stuff is not fooling anyone."

So do you think that his twitter cheering squad are just sock puppets?

I think he is actually fooling people - far too many people. And now, because
of this scumbag CEO, there are people who previously didn't know of the EFF
who are now tweeting their dislike/opposition to the EFF.

~~~
moistgorilla
People are so disenfranchised with their current providers that they will take
the "underdogs" word at face value without doing any research to back it up.

------
kin
IMO he's upset because he feels like T-Mobile is very much on the side of the
customers. As a T-Mobile customer I certainly feel that way. Free unlimited
streaming for music and video? Unlimited streaming on all content for the
holidays? He talks about how the industry is corrupt and T-Mobile started the
Jump! program which is awesome. They are also huge in the contract-free
movement.

I'm also pretty sure he's unaware of how Binge On works from a technical
standpoint. Philosophically he backs it. I'm guessing it's not well
implemented, EFF found this, and now Legere is upset because if EFF were on
the consumer side, they would not try stir trouble with T-Mobile, because
T-Mobile is making gambles taking on the side of the consumer.

~~~
ljk
Reminds me of when Mark Zuckerberg was surprised when fb's version of "the
internet" was receiving very negative feedback

------
dogma1138
Is this guy an alumni of the John McAfee school of management? Never heard of
him before but now I've watched some of his other stuff on YouTube some of it
is pure gold....

------
fastball
I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I mean, Binge On is obviously targeted at customers who have limited data
plans and seem likely to go over their cap if they watch video normally. Many
(most?) streaming sites don't provide fine-grained control over what quality
is delivered to your device. Seems like a lot still just differentiate between
"normal" and "HD". So it seems to me like T-Mobile is trying to help their
limited customers out by lowering the bandwidth on videos so that data is used
up a slower rate. I personally have an unlimited data plan, so I can't even
provide anecdotal evidence, but if I had a limited plan, I think I would
appreciate that.

Once bitrate management is in place, throttling doesn't seem like a big deal.
As long as I am still being delivered data at a rate > the rate at which I am
consuming the video (i.e. as long as there is no buffering) then there isn't
really a problem, right?

If you disagree with T-Mobile's decision to choose what bitrate is good for
you, then yeah, I understand, this sucks. If, on the other hand, you are OK
with this, then I don't really think there is an issue.

What I think would be the best option would be for T-Mobile to have some sort
of control panel that customers could use to pick a bitrate cap for all videos
that they watch on their mobile plan. Seems like that could please both
parties if they started with a fairly restrictive default setting but users
could change it.

~~~
shkkmo
The problem is that Binge On is not just 'choosing what bitrate is good for
you' but is also throttling all video data, including direct downloads.

> The EFF post found that T-Mobile isn’t actually “optimizing” any video
> traffic for Binge On users, it’s merely throttling it. Not all video players
> on all websites have the capability to down-res a video from, for example,
> 1080p to 480p. That means some videos on some websites using some players
> must be watched at their original resolution (due to T-Mobile’s guidelines,
> these will inherently not be Binge On services). Even though this
> hypothetical 1080p video would count against both a Binge On customer’s data
> cap and a non Binge On customer’s data cap, one without Binge On will stream
> the 1080p video at a speed as fast as the network can go; one with Binge On
> will stream it at 1.5 Mbps, a speed that makes it arguably un-streamable.

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/t-mobiles-binge-on-
indiscri...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/t-mobiles-binge-on-
indiscriminately-throttles-all-video-content)

I've been a fan of John Legere's antics and efforts to push for innovation in
the US carrier industry. However this sort of attack on the EFF and blatant
lying/misinformation about throttling is a shyster move.

~~~
fastball
Wow. I hadn't read that one. Very interesting. I _was_ giving them the benefit
of the doubt, but this does seem very damning.

------
RoboErectus
I'm going to guess that the reason he's saying it's not throttling is because
that's the explanation he's been given by his engineering team. Or he said
"let's optimize video in a way that isn't throttling."

He's calling it semantics because of Dunning-Kruger. Because he doesn't really
know how any of this works, but his ego is so big Superman couldn't lift it,
he inflates his surface understanding to expert level.

Tmo should publish a spec that allows any provider to meet their definition of
optimized video and therefore qualify for binge on. I'm totally fine with it
as long as they don't get to choose who gets unlimited streaming.

As it is, and as a current tmo customer, this is eye opening. Tmo had always
seemed to be the voice of reason in American wireless. What they did with
contracts was a massive step in the right direction.

But this makes it look like they don't actually get it. They just happened to
accidentally get a few things right.

------
mxxx
Gee that video really made me cringe.

Hey, maybe if we dress the CEO in a hoodie, put him in front of an electric
guitar with his batman figurines and make him say edgy things like "bullshit"
a couple of times, the kids will relate to him!

Cowabunga dudes!

~~~
cheald
This isn't a new tack. It's pretty consistent with Legere's whole schtick.

~~~
ellisv
and it even seems to be working:
[http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/t-mobile-added-
anoth...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/t-mobile-added-
another-8-3-million-customers-in-2015/)

------
DanBC
> it includes a proprietary technology and what the technology does is not
> only detect the video stream, but select the appropriate bitrate to optimize
> to the mobile device,

This sounds okay if you don't think about it too much.

I've seen what a piss-poor job T-Mobile does of image optimising, and so I
feel sorry for the people stuck on the other end of a T-Mobile connection
having their videos fiddled with.

It's not just image quality that suffers, everything about it is stupid.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484081](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484081)

~~~
voltagex_
It's only going to be really scary when CPU time becomes cheap enough to re-
encode videos on the fly (are we there already?). I can see some nefarious
uses of watermarking, or on the extreme end, OpenCV and motion tracking for
some enhanced product placement.

~~~
AjithAntony
Lots of mobile carriers already do this with Bytemobile (recently acquired by
Citrix)

[https://www.citrix.com/products/bytemobile-adaptive-
traffic-...](https://www.citrix.com/products/bytemobile-adaptive-traffic-
management/overview.html)

------
peteretep
John Legere is ... interesting.

He used to look like this:
[http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/if4q5M1spdSM.jpeg](http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/if4q5M1spdSM.jpeg)

And now he looks like this: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0Qvjw-
CMAAFn8j.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0Qvjw-CMAAFn8j.jpg)

Are there many other CEOs who have embraced their corporate branding so
seriously?

------
neumino
He thought he could pick on EFF like he does on other carriers. That was his
worst move so far.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I'm more likely to stop contributing to the EFF than paying T-Mobile for
cellular service, in the grand scheme of things.

~~~
geofft
Is their service that good? As a current T-Mobile US customer, it looks like I
can get an equivalent plan from Sprint for approximately the same cost, mostly
thanks to T-Mobile's aggressive competition.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I've had friends who couldn't get their Sprint service to work on major
streets in downtown Chicago, but my T-Mobile service worked on the Playa at
Burning Man, not to mention that I get free edge data in 140 countries:

"Only from T-Mobile, our Simple Choice Plan makes it simple for you to stay in
touch while you explore the world. Now get unlimited data and texting in 95%
of the places you travel most—140+ countries and destinations around the
globe. Oh, and calls? They’re just 20 cents a minute."

There's a reason I've used them for 14 years.

~~~
geofft
Hrm, anecdotally I've had _real_ trouble with international data roaming in
places I'd have expected to be decently covered with cell service, like cafes
in Leith. It's a nice bonus when it works, but since it's not even reliable
enough for emergencies, it's not worth any carrier loyalty. I'm curious if it
worked for you.

Isn't Commnet trying to provide actual cell service at Burning Man? I feel
like if you have a company specifically trying to make cell service work in
the middle of the desert, with no metal buildings anywhere, it's totally
unsurprising that it works.

~~~
faitswulff
The international data roaming has been strong enough for me to maintain clear
VOIP calls in Canada and Asia.

------
diebir
He's not going to be the CEO for much longer. Quite probably, being too smart
is detrimental to CEO career, but being obviously dumb in interactions with
the media is not tolerated at all.

There was once a CEO of Seagate that could not contain himself and said
something to the effect that people "buy drives to store porn". He was gone
soon there after.

~~~
stonogo
I think you're vastly overestimating the repercussions here. John Legere has
built his reputation on saying crazy shit; this is a drop in the bucket.

~~~
sremani
Along with outspokeness, John Legere has started many things at T-Mobile the
rest of the industry adopted. He is not a lose cannon, like people are
portraying here.

~~~
CaptSpify
Why not both? He seems like a loose cannon, but one that often hits the mark.
Sometimes it takes someone who is a little crazy to go against the bigger
players.

------
arianvanp
Now that I gave it another thought. Isn't the only way to comply with net
neutrality to throttle _all_ video instead of certain video? And isn't that
exactly what T-mobile is trying to do here? It still sucks because it is
misleading, but I sort of get where they're coming from.

~~~
adenadel
I'm not a T-mobile customer, but I guess the "BingeOn" feature is supposed to
stop the throttling for certain video providers.

~~~
wmf
No, I think it throttles all video. OK, maybe it doesn't throttle video
providers who voluntarily throttle themselves, but the result is the same.

~~~
adenadel
Yeah, I misread. Binge On makes it so that the data from certain providers
doesn't count against your data limit, but leads to throttling of all videos.

------
jackmoore
Just wanted to remind folks that you can support the EFF through AmazonSmile.

~~~
jkaunisv1
Never heard of AmazonSmile. Is it just regular Amazon but they donate a % to
charity? Does it offer only a subset of their products? I'm looking for the
catch but I can't see it.

~~~
URSpider94
It's just an overlay on Amazon.com that lets you designate a charity to
receive a small percentage of your purchases as a donation. If you can buy it
on Amazon, you can buy it on smile.amazon -- because they are the same site.

------
silveira
Ok, I'm making a donation to EFF.

------
denova
T-Mobile customers, feel free to write to them at:

    
    
      T-Mobile Customer Relations
      P.O. Box 37380
      Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380
    

I couldn't find an email address.

------
jrcii
I'm not sure how Steve Buscemi got to be CEO of T-Mobile but he's making a big
mistake picking a fight with the EFF.

------
intrasight
Neither T-Mobile nor EFF nor net neutrality come out looking good on this one.
As others have pointed out in this discussion, net neutrality is a thing for
broadband wired Internet where there is rarely competition, not for wireless
internet where there is plenty of competition and one way to compete is to
offer compelling services. But the T-Mobile CEO is a jerk and that rarely
works out well for anyone.

------
karcass
He's the Trump of Telecom

~~~
bradleyankrom
I don't think that's the kind of personality I want speaking for a company I'm
entrusting with my communications data. Save the schtick for a lifestyle
brand. The EFF isn't TMO's competition, there's no reason for a profanity-
laced response from the goddamn CEO of a global telecom (particularly a
telecom that already attracts attention from antitrust watchdogs).

------
shmerl
He picked the wrong target. It was fun when he was poking AT&T and Verizon who
deserved it. But EFF? That's going to backfire. And especially since T-Mobile
is indeed violating Net Neutrality.

------
placeybordeaux
Off topic:

Who the hell edited this video? There are an insane amount of cuts.

~~~
ibejoeb
T-mobile certainly adopted the youtube-style vlog jump cut scheme. It's not
for everyone, but it has certainly been on-trend for a long while now. He's
also tweeting selfie video responses; I think it's good that he's
participating in the culture to which he caters.

More discussion: [https://www.quora.com/Internet-Culture/Why-do-popular-
YouTub...](https://www.quora.com/Internet-Culture/Why-do-popular-YouTube-
vlogs-purposely-overuse-jump-cuts)

------
devy
Disclaimer: I had been an AT&T mobile customer for more than a decade and
subscribed with Verizon and Sprint each for a few years before jumped to
T-Mobile about 2 years ago and happily ever since.

If you read through the entire EFF report on BingeOn [1], you will see that
there are only two problems EFF had with T-Mobile's BingeOn program:

1\. "Throttle" or "Downgrade/optimize" (pick a word depending on your
viewpoint for either side) of all HTML5 video streams

2\. Opt-in by default

Net neutrality debates aside, I love BingeOn since day one and didn't notice
much of degradation of video quality when I watch videos with BingOn (I still
left it on)

All the arguments EFF against BingeOn, T-Mobile can easily tweak their program
to easily comply.

Regarding #1, I suspect it's more of a technical challenge than an illicit
intent [2] (of saving data bandwidth, which of course if the win-win situation
T-Mobile wanted). Some like YouTube has proprietary steaming intricacies that
T-Mobile have had technical difficulties to selectively "Throttle" or
"Downgrade" only content partners so it's easier to just do it for all as
hinted by this WSJ article about YouTube's reluctance of signing on BingOn.[3]

As far as #2 goes, again, no doubt T-Mobile wanted to save their bandwidth at
the same time get credits for it putting a marketing campaign around its
practice, but EFF (given the sensitivity about Net neutrality) and
YouTube(very opinionated about user experience on video quality) certainly
have different viewpoints about it.

In the end, as a T-Mobile customer, my heart still sides with John Legere's
latest unconventional and controversial un-carrier move because

A) I still have a choice to turn BingeOn off (though I won't as I would rather
save 2/3 of my data cap to do something else and very gladly and gracefully
accept my zero-rated video content allowances on partnered video sites.)

B) I am optimistic about T-Mobile to eventually figure out a way to
selectively (as opposed to indiscriminately) "optimize" video content on only
partnered video sites so that it will be more compliant with net neutrality.
There is a technical challenge to overcome after all.

C) Despite of profanity and inappropriate wardrobes, I, as an mobile customer,
love what John Legere has done for wireless subscribers in the U.S. and the
direction he set for the industry. Needless to say, results are self-
explanatory. [4]

[1]: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-
mobiles...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-
bingeon-optimization-just-throttling-applies)

[2]: [http://www.androidcentral.com/bingeon-terrible-purpose-
and-j...](http://www.androidcentral.com/bingeon-terrible-purpose-and-john-
legere-needs-stop)

[3]: [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/11/12/t-mobiles-problem-
wit...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/11/12/t-mobiles-problem-with-youtube-
whats-a-video-and-whats-not/?mod=rss_Technology)

[4]: [http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy-
john-...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy-john-legeres-
strategy-for-taking-new-customers-by-storm)

~~~
OrwellianChild
I think you meant it is "Opt-out", meaning "on by default"...

~~~
devy
Yes, you are right, my bad :)

------
gcb0
i would have continued to be a customer of they said "it's a technology
limitation, but the benefits are great and we plan to work on improving the
side effects" (even if i know for sure the last part was a lie).

------
mahouse
The EFF? A liberal lobby.

~~~
jshevek
Not at all.

The EFF cares about free speech. Is that a liberal position? Too many liberals
that I know do not care enough about free speech.

The EFF cares about privacy. Is that a liberal issue? I know people all across
the political spectrum who care about privacy.

~~~
thescriptkiddie
Not sure if you're an American or not, but the guy you're replying to probably
is. In the US, "liberal" has a different meaning than it does elsewhere.
Privacy, freedom of speech, and personal liberties in general are core tenets
of American liberalism.

