
T-Mobile's John Legere Goes Off the Deep End: 'Who the Fuck Are You, EFF?' - koja86
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160107/14412033273/t-mobiles-john-legere-goes-off-deep-end-who-fuck-are-you-eff.shtml
======
SloopJon
The "who pays you" FUD reminds me of the subpoena Personal Audio sought for a
list of EFF donors in the podcasting patent case. The EFF is not a front for
your competitors. People really care about this stuff.

~~~
wl
We see the same kind of thing with the National Rifle Association. It seems
like many people opposed to them are convinced that it's just a proxy for the
small arms industry (that would be the National Shooting Sports Foundation)
and it can't possibly have the grassroots support it does.

~~~
aidenn0
To me the NRA just seems to have gone off the deep-end in the last decade or
so. Perhaps it's just a symptom of the increasing political polarization in
the US in general, but recently it seems like their point of view has shifted
to "no gun regulation is good gun regulation" which is almost a parody of what
they used to stand for.

~~~
artimaeis
It seems to me that the NRA positions itself to the government as a
representative of all gun owners. Around 31% of households in America claim to
own guns [1] - so maybe this group shouldn't have so much political sway as it
does? I recognize that groups with moderate views are few and far between but
the collective "we" that the NRA stands for keeps pushing me further away from
it.

[1]:
[http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun...](http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun%20Ownership_US_1972-2014.pdf)

~~~
pdeuchler
31% of Americans is an enormous political faction, you'd be hard pressed to
find another group of citizens with a singular lobbying purpose that reaches
that size (AARP and Agriculture lobbies come immediately to mind).

------
zekevermillion
I love this "proprietary technology" schtick, as if selective throttling isn't
something that any carrier could implement. The hardest part of developing
this technology was likely the legal analysis as to why it doesn't violate FCC
net neutrality rules. My conspiracy theory is that TMO implemented a system
which does not violate the rules, but is designed to get customers used to the
concept of throttling. Then after some lobbying or political changes, the
rules may change, and TMO will have both the infrastructure as well as
complacent customers ready to pay extra (perhaps indirectly) for streaming
content on mobile data plans.

~~~
Brotkrumen
I don't think they're after customer money. They want service provider money.

If what telekom is trying in germany is a any indication, the plan is to move
all traffic to the BingeOn mode. After that, they degrade services that are
not paying them and zero-rate + allow higher bitrates for services that pay
them.

But "paying" is not cash if the talk in our startup scene is to be believed.
Telekom is pulling out of startup incubating (after failing miserably) and are
trying to use their position as an intermediary to get equity off of every new
startup.

How? Imagine a new startup "meflixtube": growth is good, funding is secured,
everything looks great. Telekom notices and says "would be a shame if
something degrading would happen to your service, ey? give us a few percent of
equity and you'll get zero-rated, undegraded access to our customers". Now
instead of getting a few $$$, they are in line to get a few 100 million $$$
when a few of the new startups take off. They can even make sure that the
startups they have "convinced" don't get any competition by refusing the same
deal to competitors.

tl;dr: Telekom is not after customer money, their customer base is the market
they "offer" to companies and zero-rated, undegraded data is their gate.

~~~
mikeash
This is spot on, and it's why "free" offerings are still a major net
neutrality worry. Even if there's nothing underhanded going on with them
initially, it sets the stage for trouble.

I find "proprietary technology" claims amusing because to me that is such an
obviously bad thing, and bragging about it is like General Mills bragging that
every box of Wheaties is contaminated with mercury and PCBs.

~~~
netneutralish
To play devil's advocate here, does this mean companies shouldn't even offer
time-limited freebies (e.g. promotional offerings "Buy 2 data packages for the
price of 1! Limited Time offer!")?

Or is the worry that only indefinitely free offerings can set the stage for
trouble later? To me both viewpoints set the stage for trouble, except the
indefinite free offering is a darker shade of gray.

~~~
subway
The issue isn't free/paid, but variations in communications service
performance based on the content of the communications or the parties
involved.

~~~
netneutralish
Except where such variations in communications service are explicitly
authorized by the consumer.

A counter example that I bet T-Mobile is waiting to deploy is parental
control. As strange as it sounds, there are actually families that pay to have
their wireless carrier restrict adult content while on-net.

EDIT: "As strange as it sounds" refers to the fact that most parental control
solutions are network-based, when in fact a proper parental control solution
should be client-based because as soon as your child goes to WiFi at
MacDonalds/Starbucks they probably have access to all the adult content they
want to see by bypassing the wireless carrier parental control network
controls.

~~~
nandhp
So I have T-Mobile (a prepaid account on a pay-as-you-go plan with no data),
and there's already a parental control feature: they call it Web Guard. It's
been there for a long time (since dumbphones) and is set to "Young Adult
(17+)" by default. To turn it off I need to provide age verification: my full
name, address, date of birth, and last four digits of my social security
number. Although this information "will not be collected or stored for any use
by T-Mobile USA" \-- presumably it's only sent to Equifax or some other
identity verification partner -- I'm still not comfortable giving them that
information (I believe the only personal information I've ever provided is my
name, email address, and ZIP code). I haven't made a fuss because I have no
data plan, so turning it off won't help me, but I do still find it annoying.

Incidentally, when I went looking for the setting today (it's in your account
profile under Phone Controls), I discovered I now have a Binge On setting,
which is (of course) on by default. However, I haven't checked to see if
streaming video works (even though I have no data plan).

~~~
netneutralish
I didn't know that but it makes sense from a liability perspective. Not sure
if other prepaid offerings are similar.

------
cptskippy
I feel like the EFF is arguing semantics and hasn't really made a valid
argument about what's wrong with T-Mobile's approach. Yes T-Mobile is
throttling and yes they're trying to relabel what they're doing to avoid all
of the negative connotations that the term "throttling" brings wit it, but
what are they doing that's harmful to the customer? I think it ultimately
comes down to the fact that T-Mobile made it an opt-out feature instead of an
opt-in one.

The reality is that wireless bandwidth is constrained and sustained transfers
at high rates degrade the overall experience of everyone using a particular
cellular tower. T-Mobile, being particularly bandwidth constrained, is
attempting to mitigate this issue. They're doing it by offering a service
where if you allow your bandwidth for certain content types to be be
throttled, then the bandwidth you use for certain qualifying services won't
count against your data cap. They're offering a carrot, not threatening with a
stick.

Yes it's opt-out, but that was probably done intentionally because most folks
won't notice the degradation or won't care, _AND_ , more importantly, most
people wouldn't bother to enable it if it were opt-in. If T-Mobile made it
opt-in then their adoption rate would be lower so by making opt-out they're
getting the greatest benefit.

I just looked at my account and the toggle to turn Binge On off is easily
accessible in my user profile. It's not a buried feature anywhere. The only
possible gripe I could see is that the setting is granular and per-line making
it marginally harder to disable, but that's also a benefit. I have multiple
lines on my account but only 1 has unlimited data, so the ability to disable
it for just that one line is nice and allows me to have my cake and eat it
too.

~~~
kodablah
Regardless of T-Mobile's intentions, this is on-by-default traffic shaping and
content manipulation. They also weren't clear that this is only a throttling
service and nothing more. My biggest issue is that it's on by default.

~~~
zw123456
Agreed, that is where they run afoul of NN in my view, if the customer is
given a opt-in choice then it is OK. The parallel is regular cable service,
you can select regular or HD where HD costs more, but it is your choice.

~~~
cptskippy
They are giving the user a choice, they just defaulted to opt-out instead of
opt-in. It's like when you buy something online and get auto-subscribed to a
mailing list. You still have the option to turn it off.

~~~
kodablah
They made the choice for them. You would think differently if this were an on-
by-default service compressing PNGs to JPEG or automatically minifying other
content in the name of bandwidth saving. It's a dangerous slope for companies
to turn on content manipulation at will. The free market has a hard time
punishing them (or even knowing) for large telcos and ISPs. This is the crux
of the NN legislation argument.

~~~
cptskippy
They chose a default, the choice to change that default is still with the
customer. It's also very granular so you can choose for each individual line
how you want your service.

While content manipulation would give pause for concern, as it does with
Comcast's data cap notifications, that isn't what T-Mobile is doing. They're
not altering the traffic, they're altering the transport rate which is very
different. By lowering the bandwidth of certain content types, they're
triggering the adaptive technologies employed by services to behave
differently.

One of the EFF's gripes was that the pipe constriction was indiscriminate and
thus services that didn't employ adaptive technologies experienced buffering
and stuttering issues. That's probably the only legitimate point they made.

------
askafriend
The level of ignorance and intentional misdirection by Tmobile's CEO here is
incredible.

I say this as a customer :/

~~~
coldpie
The short video sounds like what you'd hear from any salesperson to me. A
rough outline of the talking points, but no real understanding of how what
they're selling works. Which is OK, it's not their job to be technical, but it
does sound really crummy when you actually do understand what they're talking
about. For example, "proprietary technology" sounds good to whoever this guy
usually talks to. It sounds like nonsense to us.

The sales department. Am I right, engineers?

~~~
askafriend
What's even more appalling is that he so vehemently refuses to acknowledge the
throttling of data throughput _even after EFF reached out to TMobile
separately and the company confirmed it_. HIS OWN COMPANY CONFIRMED IT!!!

That's just comedy.

~~~
netneutralish
It's various shades of spin. For unencrypted videos, T-Mobile might be using
other techniques beyond throttling (e.g. downshifting the resolution). Or
perhaps he's trying to get around strict throttling by claiming (in his head)
that they're only throttling videos, while other data isn't being touched.

I wonder if he's on an internal hunt to find out who confirmed to the EFF that
videos were being "throttled".

------
gz5
WiFi is the long-term winner of Binge On. And that may be T-Mobile's
objective?

In most markets, TM can't compete head-to-head with the dominant LTE provider
in that market. If other MNOs follow T-Mobile's lead (certainly not a given,
but a possibility), then this moves the playing field to WiFi. And T-Mobile
may prefer to play there.

~~~
netneutralish
I wish I could upvote you more than once. BingeOn provides limited relief for
consumers using data while on-net, and are the most advanced amongst the
American wireless carriers around integrated WiFi services.

For example, they were the first as far as I can tell to launch extensive WiFi
calling and WiFi SMS, even extending to some American airlines (at least for
WiFi SMS - calling is possible but socially unaccepted on planes).

Wireless carriers as a general rule are all looking at WiFi offload
capabilities especially as 802.11ad and up provide higher transmission rates
(peak and average theoreticals).

There is a race to perfect and bring to market seamless WiFi-base station
handoffs (both ways) in real-world conditions. I suspect that will require a
combination of channel (i.e. mobile devices) + wireless network upgrades, so
in the meantime carriers need to bridge the gap. This is arguably a pretty
good strategy assuming T-Mobile is expecting WiFi to handle even more of their
traffic overtime.

~~~
zanny
Except what T-Mobile wants does not mean jack to what consumers want, and it
is reflective of the times for a company to be trying to exploit consumers
rather than provide value to them.

Of course every carrier wants you using wifi instead of their network. _Its
not their expense_ , but you would still be paying them for it. But people are
not subscribing to often ludicrous mobile plan bills to be told to not use it.

We absolutely have the technology to provide a huge swathe of people broadband
(as per the new FCC relabel) Internet access through long-range transmission
based tech like GSM CDMA or WIMAX. That makes it insane to propose laying
physical wire in the dirt or making an interconnected mesh of low power wifi
routers as a substitute. The only real barrier is the draconian privatization
of photons that makes up spectrum regulation. If we had a 95% open spectrum
with some restricted for government and emergency communications you could
easily have broad spectrum towers that could adapt to congestion and pair them
with radios that will adapt frequency to optimize for range vs data rate vs
congestion.

The limitations are entirely artificial and that should be pissing people off.

~~~
netneutralish
Re. "95% open spectrum" \- Now we're really getting into the interesting
tangents!

I'm still on the fence about de-privatizing spectrum for a variety of reasons.
But the biggest elephant in the room whenever discussing spectrum de-
privatization is that the FCC earned US$45 billion from wireless carriers last
year, and US$19 billion in 2008's auction ([http://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-
rakes-in-45-billion-from-wirele...](http://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-rakes-
in-45-billion-from-wireless-spectrum-auction/)). In the grand scheme of the
entire US federal budget, I think that's just a drop in the bucket. But it's
still money that the federal government looks forward to.

So on the one hand, the FCC wants to play fair for consumers and tax-payers.
On the other hand, the FCC can't really restructure an existing industry
without biting the hand that literally feeds their existence to the tune of
US$2-3 billion per year if you imagine their auction revenue as ratable over
the years an auction doesn't take place.

~~~
zanny
Considering we're on a topic that is complete fantasy anyway, you could just
rebudget the FCC. They aren't getting paid 3 billion a year of magic money -
they are being funded effectively by the users of the networks that buy the
spectrum in their bills they pay to the carrier.

Obviously we can look at the FCC and know it will not actually break up the
spectrum monopolies, because its a conflict of interest. That doesn't change
that privitization of radio waves is hostile to everyone but those who can
exploit their ownership for profit.

------
mvdwoord
I did a short consultancy gig at T-Systems (also part of Deutsche Telekom,
like T-Mobile). Apparently they had bad experiences with T-Mobile services so
were in the process of switching to another provider. Funnily enough, T-Mobile
was not such a big fan of the IT service provided by T-Systems, and was also
looking for an alternative. Sounds like a very healthy company indeed. P.s.
John, if you read this, I also pay for the EFF.

------
technofiend
If only Project Fi's cost/gb were competitive with T-Mobile so I could jump
ship. For my volume of use (5-10GB/mo) T-Mobile is the cheapest provider in
town.

Google's convergence (i.e. bundling Fi+Fiber) in this space would be exciting
if they could get their MVNO pricing competitive but I guess they'd have to
buy T-Mobile or Sprint to make that happen because they're not going to sell
minutes or data at a loss.

~~~
mikeash
As long as people prioritize price above all other things, shenanigans like
this will keep happening. If you're not willing to pay more for better service
then your likes or dislikes don't matter in the end.

~~~
toolz
That's simply not true at all, if you're paying the lowest, that means you
value money over extra service and provided ample opportunities for
competition in the market place and customers that want cheap service. They'll
get what they want.

If there isn't ample competition or near perfect legislation, it doesn't
matter what you pay, the service will eventually be held by a monopoly that
can do almost whatever they damn well please.

You don't fight monopolies by paying more money, because as long as that's
your only focus, the bar to entering the market will continue to rise until
eventually you can't afford the `good guy`.

~~~
mikeash
There's no monopoly in the US cell phone market. Competition is decently
robust, with four major networks and a buttload of MVNOs.

Right now, _one_ network is pulling this throttling bullshit. If you don't
like it, there are other choices. If you say "I wish I could switch but
T-Mobile is cheaper" then what you're actually saying is that you don't care
about the issue enough to pay for it, and that means the providers have no
reason to care about it.

~~~
maxsilver
> one network is pulling this throttling bullshit.

They're _all_ doing something major that violates Net Neutrality.

Sprint's compresses images and throttles video
[https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=sprint%20compressing%20images) They just don't
advertise compression/throttling as a "feature", so it doesn't get the
publicity. Sprint also does zero-rating for music.

AT&T has "Sponsored Data" and throttles 'unlimited' plans, and Verizon has
their ad-tracking-injection mess.

Whoever I pay is going to get money for "pulling bullshit". I love the idea of
voting with your dollar, but _all_ of the major cell networks are anti-Net-
Neutrality in multiple ways, so the whole thing is almost a false choice.

~~~
mikeash
I don't see how throttling "unlimited" plans is a net neutrality problem, but
other than that, point taken.

The comment I replied to mentions Project Fi, do they avoid all this?

Aside: not that this really makes it better, but AT&T's list of Sponsored Data
providers is full of hilariously obscure companies:

[http://www.att.com/att/sponsoreddata/en/index.html](http://www.att.com/att/sponsoreddata/en/index.html)

~~~
netneutralish
_I don 't see how throttling "unlimited" plans is a net neutrality problem_

It's one of the examples given during the FCC's bright-line guidance (
[https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-332260A1.p...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-332260A1.pdf)):

 _However, the network practice must be primarily used for and tailored to
achieving a legitimate network management and not business purpose. For
example, a provider can’t cite reasonable network management to justify
reneging on its promise to supply a customer with “unlimited” data._

~~~
mikeash
I still don't see how it's a net neutrality problem. Promising "unlimited" and
then not providing it is a bad thing, certainly, but it's either false
advertising or a failure to abide by the service contract, not a net
neutrality violation.

~~~
netneutralish
You'd be right if the carrier denied data access beyond a certain limit
despite advertising "unlimited".

But if the carrier chooses to throttle an "unlimited" data plan and thus
degrades the delivery speed outside of "network management" contexts (such as
congested network conditions) then they are now subject to _additional_
punitive fines arising from net neutrality regulations that they are now
subject to, on top of any (successful) fines related to misrepresentative
advertising.

This falls under the category of willfully "impairing, or degrading" an
existing service motivated by business interests related to the specific
subscriber, instead of driven by purely technical network management
justifications which would apply to a wider geographic area (i.e. not
subscriber-specific), and this is one of the bright-line examples given by the
FCC when they issued their press release.

As a side note, I believe the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of
Consumer Protection handles deceptive advertising enforcement, while the FCC
handles net neutrality enforcement.

~~~
mikeash
I understand you're saying that the FCC considers it to be a net neutrality
issue, and I'm not disputing that. I'm simply saying that I don't agree with
that, and don't see why it would be considered a net neutrality issue. If you
throttle all data to "unlimited" customers equally then that's still perfectly
neutral. The government may disagree, but I have no reason to follow their
definitions.

------
zw123456
The technology they are using basically is similar to the technologies other
wireless providers have used for throttling which they sometimes call "video
optimization", the word optimize here is from the perspective of the carrier
meaning "use less bandwidth on our network. It works by re-sampling and
reducing the video quality in terms of resolution (pixels) and also color
fidelity (e.g. octree). The thinking is that people watching video content on
their phones will not notice the difference because the screen is so much
smaller. The reason a lot of carriers ran afoul of NetNeut is that they were
applying it without the consent of the subscriber (for example some would
apply it only when their network or a cell site was nearing capacity or for
users who were "abusing" unlimited plans (abusing meaning actually using a
lot). I am not sure if the user elects to use a service with reduced quality
at a reduced cost is really a violation of Net-Neut or not, the cable
companies offer regular definition and high definition TV at tiered pricing
for example. All the wireless carriers are trying to get into the content
business in various ways as the growth of the traditional business levels off.

One add on to my own comment is that I forgot is that there is an allegation
that Tmo is applying "video optimization" to content other than bingeon, which
if true is a clear violation. It also is possible they are just incompetent
too because that type of system they are using has to be programmed based on
the 5-tuple source or destinations (and some other parameters) which it would
not surprise me if they screwed that up).

------
maxerickson
Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10861391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10861391)

(still ranked ~80)

------
supergirl
To me it sounds like he really doesn't know what EFF is.

~~~
mistermumble
He knows. His question was not a question, it was an aggressive statement of
FUD.

He is backpedaling and now saying that "innovation" can be controversial.

[https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/685236769319587840](https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/685236769319587840)

------
elahd
FWIW, he followed up in a Periscope chat:
[https://www.periscope.tv/w/aV8GYzE4NTc4fDF5b0tNZHpRbXFveFELq...](https://www.periscope.tv/w/aV8GYzE4NTc4fDF5b0tNZHpRbXFveFELqXKy00GCduhfapXi-
Pw9hE0fOURv_nuD9m46Bcx_kQ==)

------
fweespeech
Does anyone else find it disturbing he doesn't know who the EFF and their
sources of income are?

~~~
flurpitude
Not exactly disturbing, but revealing. Evidently he lives in a little
corporate bubble and is out of touch with the concerns of many ordinary
internet users.

~~~
zaphar
I would not call card carrying EFF members ordinary internet users. We may be
vocal but the vast majority of the internet denizens don't know who the EFF is
either.

The EFF does represent the concerns that most ordinary internet users _should_
have but I don't know that I would say most of the _do_ have those concerns.

~~~
massysett
Here EFF is pushing government interference in the market, as pushed by an FCC
that is exceeding its authority, all so that consumers can have less choice
(after all, if they don't like Binge On, they can choose another carrier that
does not have it.) Most users don't share the EFF's concern because what T-Mo
is doing does not harm them, so I certainly don't see how users even "should"
share EFF's concern here.

~~~
fweespeech
The problem with this is, ultimately, it allows providers to create the
original "slow lane/fast lane" situation.

------
brudgers
T-Mobile's product is a move into creating a "wireless cable" company. In the
long run, it's going to be cheaper to compete across many local markets by
building towers than running last mile wires and contracting fleets of service
technician vans.

In the US, the fact that most regulation is at the Federal level, implies that
such a move will be relatively unconstrained by local governments and less
burdened by franchise fees and right of way agreements and negotiations with
power companies for stringing wires on poles. I suspect that regulations
requiring big carriers to provide access on their networks and access to their
exchanges may be another advantage, but I'm not a telecom lawyer.

It's probably a necessary move as video increasingly dominates bandwidth
consumption. And my experience is that competition in the cable market tends
to lead to better service.

I'm not really sure this is a bigger affront to net neutrality than some CDN
delivering stale content or Google and Bing customizing my search results.
It's just that we've come to accept those things and tend to heap hate on
cable company business practices.

~~~
grandalf
> cable company business practices

Nearly by definition, "cable company business practices" means shared
bandwidth circuits, the business practices in question being network QoS
attempts to make it profitable to offer shared network services at low cost.

I'd love to see a mathematical analysis of how much FIOS would cost if
everyone got a 100% dedicated circuit at anything close to the advertised
specs.

The hubbub about T-Mobile's policy is a misguided rant which idealistically
supposes that all bandwidth should be sold in some idealized "dedicated" way
with no QoS imposed. It certainly could be sold that way, but at a much higher
price.

------
Phemist
Apparently this is part of his image:

[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)

Be offensive, get millions of customers.

------
chiph
Poking an alligator with a short stick is likely to have bad consequences.

~~~
isaacdl
Who's the alligator here?

------
nfriedly
This might be the only time I've ever been happy to _not_ be a t-mobile
customer. (Well, at least for reasons other than network coverage...)

------
aluhut
Yes, that's the (formerly) government-owned corporation arrogance we got used
to in Germany. As a former customer I hope they choke on it one day.

------
grandalf
The whole net neutrality debate is fraught with profound misunderstandings of
how the internet works. This T-Mobile/EFF fiasco included.

We think of bandwidth in terms of maximum throughput, which makes sense for a
dedicated circuit, since often the customer of a dedicated circuit plans to
keep it nearly saturated (consider an office phone system, for example).

We also care about latency and packet loss, but these are generally
application specific concerns. Internet browsing works pretty well with high
latency, but VOIP does not.

Generally, it's always possible to overbuild the circuit and exceed the
minimum performance requirements. A small office could install a second T1 to
handle the extremely rare case of all phones and all fax machines being in use
at once, but it may prefer to save the money and use a single T1. The second
T1 could be viewed along the lines of an insurance policy against a usage
spike, and the decision not to buy it could be considered "living dangerously"
or voluntarily exposing the company to that risk in exchange for money saved.

T-Mobile is not selling a dedicated bandwidth circuit to its customers, in
spite of what the EFF wants us to feel indignant about. Yes, we all know the
slippery slope the EFF is concerned about, but what T-Mobile is doing is quite
reasonable.

Imagine that you are the only person using a cable modem in the whole
neighborhood. There is ample bandwidth available to you. But if all the
neighbors are also using it, there is throttling and prioritization going on
so that the finite bandwidth can be shared optimally.

What does optimally mean? That is very much in the eye of the beholder. Maybe
you play network games and would prefer that the network be optimized for low
latency and UDP. Maybe your neighbor runs a BitTorrent node. Maybe someone
down the street downloads raw SETI data for some kind of analysis. _Each
person has a different optimal QoS that he /she wishes the service provider
would impose on everyone else._

T-Mobile has strong incentives to keep its customers happy. By analyzing the
bandwidth usage, it has found a way to offer bandwidth at a lower cost by
imposing a specific kind of QoS filter on the data.

This is precisely the purpose of QoS, being able to "stretch" bandwidth to
accommodate more traffic by placing limits and prioritization on the traffic,
with the goal of meeting all of the _application specific_ requirements that
the circuit would ideally meet.

So, quite reasonably, T-Mobile has found a way to constrain some of the most
egregious bandwidth hogging behavior its customers do, and has engineered a
way to offer the constrained service at an improved price and packaged in a
way so customers perceive _greater value_ from the service.

Yes, there might be someone trying to download SETI data over the T-Mobile LTE
connection, or trying to compete in networked gaming, or all sorts of edge
cases, but like Amazon's choice of which products it offers as Prime, T-Mobile
has chosen a broadly appealing QoS filter which will result in most customers
perceiving better value.

Additionally, it allows T-Mobile to leverage content providers in
infrastructure planning risk, which helps reduce the amount of bandwidth
speculation going on, and overall makes the circuit perform more like a
dedicated circuit. This point is subtle but true.

So while the T-Mobile CEO seems a bit over the top, the EFF has (I think) gone
over the line in an ill-conceived attack on one of the more progressive
service providers. I personally donate to the EFF and proudly display the
laptop sticker, but I also understand QoS and the complexity of shared
infrastructure planning.

~~~
apenwarr
Thank you! I'm a T-Mobile customer and that's exactly what I was thinking when
I read about this plan. For what it's worth, as a customer I know I can opt
out of this plan and I didn't, because unlimited lower resolution video simply
is worth more to me than limited high resolution video.

Personally my only concern is that zero rating only applies to video providers
that sign up with them. If they want to be good corporate citizens, I think
they should zero rate all the streams they detect as video, so there's a 1:1
mapping between zero rated and throttled.

I live in New York, where many many people's only connection to the Internet
is on their phone. They have no home wifi. With this plan, t-mobile just
became way more cost effective for those people if they want to watch tons of
video.

Is it the first step down a slippery slope? I don't know. But this first step
is awfully appealing from my point of view as a cheapskate consumer.

(My views here do not in any way represent the opinions of my employer.)

------
forrestthewoods
"... you'd probably pick EFF. The group, which has been around forever..."

Founded July 6, 1990; 25 years ago.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation))

What a curious definition of forever. I'm not always sure when the EFF is more
interested in protecting digital rights or self-promotion. Some statements
sure feel like the later.

~~~
pessimizer
World-Wide-Web-forever. I don't think anyone was implying that they were
around before utilization of electricity became common, or before the Warring
States period in China.

