
T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Applies Indiscriminately - mortenjorck
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-bingeon-optimization-just-throttling-applies
======
jwr
I think it is time to regulate the Internet. And before you all go ballistic
on me, I mean the term "Internet". There should be a certain basic definition
of the term, regulated by law. And just like you can't just put a sign up on
your door and start calling your company a "Bank", you should not be able to
advertise that you are providing the "Internet" without meeting certain
regulations.

These regulations should be fairly basic: pass all IPv6 traffic unmodified,
pass all IPv4 traffic unmodified except for NAT.

Then I would have a choice whether I want to pay for "Internet access", or
"T-Mobile special limited edition we-will-modify-your-packets-as-we-see-fit
networking package". Depending on pricing, the special limited edition
networking package might actually work for me, but it should be clear that
this is not the Internet.

On a related note, there is a similar problem in Poland: the state licensed
new spectrum under the condition that the new operator would have to provide
free internet to anyone who registers, for several years. Fast forward two
years, and "free internet" means being disconnected every hour and having to
solve a horrific CAPTCHA and go through several redirects to get any access,
which of course pretty much excludes your MiFi or other router-like devices,
and turns your online experience into walking a minefield (will I manage to
place this order before my access blows up and I'll have to reconnect, losing
the data I entered?). This problem would not exist if it wasn't for a vague
definition of the term "Internet".

~~~
TeMPOraL
Here's a cynical view: if those regulations you describe would ever be
enacted, "Internet" providers would rename their selective service into
"ExtraNet" or something ("now with Super Fast Netflix in Ultra HD!"), with the
regular (regulated) Internet access also available, but properly throttled-
down. As an ISP trying to provide neutral service, good luck convincing your
customers that they're selling shit and yours is the real deal. They're
bullshitting the general population now, I don't see how regulating the term
"Internet" would stop it (unless the rulings would cover a lot of technical
details about connectivity, e.g. if you connect to a third-party IP network,
you're part of the Internet, etc.).

RE Free Internet in Poland, the situation is absolutely ridiculous. The
company that runs it, Aero2 (they deserve to be named and shamed), is an
absolute mockery. Not only they started with the Captcha bullshit[0], they now
actually advertise two options - "Free Internet" and "Internet without
Captcha". To apply for the free Internet, you had to (around 2012-2014; I'm
not certain what the situation is now) be personally present in Warsaw to pick
up the SIM card. And pay the deposit. _For the free SIM card_. They made sure
the paperwork is nontrivial, and the procedure not easy to discover - they did
exactly what one would do if one had to provide a service but absolutely
didn't want to do it. The end result is that most Polish people don't even
know this service is available.

I don't even know who to blame more. Our FCC-equivalent (UKE; they're probably
the nicest and most easy-going government agency in Poland) had a good idea.
But whoever let Aero2 win the bid fucked up, and then the company fucked
everything for everyone, and I'm pretty sure they did it on purpose.

[0] - I know. This is because they want their service to be only for personal
use, and to get rid of people who download lots of stuff (for whatever "lots"
you can download at 256kbps). But in the process, they've managed to fuck up
the service and destroy plethora of potential applications - from MiFi
equipment (dual-SIM phones are still rare in Poland) to giving your Arduino a
data service to non-profit scientific measurement equipment.

~~~
jwr
> They're bullshitting the general population now, I don't see how regulating
> the term "Internet" would stop it

While I do see your point, a similar approach worked fairly well for banks,
law practices, and medical services, just to name a few. Sure, you can get a
crappy deal, but regulation helps to at least roughly separate the wheat from
the chaff, and people learned to distinguish between them.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Do those apples look like those oranges? I might be able to go to Old Tony for
my deposits and withdrawals, but can he give me legal advice and represent me
in court? Is he allowed to drill my teeth while protesting that he's not a
dentist, but a toothologist? I'm fairly certain that he's definitely not
allowed to attempt a kidney transplant.

------
SomeCallMeTim
I guess I'm going to be different and actually suggest that I think Binge On
is fine.

Almost all video streaming services _will_ downgrade the stream quality if
they get a 1.5Mbps pipe, and any that don't are at a competitive disadvantage
to anyone who is streaming from a phone and who _actually_ only has a 1.5Mbps
pipe. It's built into most of the streaming protocols to downgrade on a slower
connection. Source: I worked with video streaming on the client side when I
was at Amazon, and additionally researched other options to the one we settled
on.

So T-Mobile is asking users to choose between a (potentially) lower quality
video stream in exchange for getting tons of video streaming options for free.
This reduces load on their network, because people were obviously streaming
anyway, and has convinced the biggest providers like Netflix to voluntarily
reduce their bandwidth consumption to 480p in order to get free streaming to
T-Mobile customers.

 _At best_ I would say that better user education could be called for, or
potentially _forcing_ the users to make an opt-in/out decision, but honestly I
think the users would _hate_ the interruption. This is clearly a situation
like the European cookie permission law: If you force them to ask the users
whether it's OK, sure they will ask, and that will interfere with the UX and
piss off users.

I'm fine with it being opt-out; let T-Mobile email or send a notification to
everyone about how to opt out if they want, along with an explanation of the
consequences, and let them decide whether to click the "opt out" button.

Not "because T-Mobile," like another comment implied, but because it's a fine
trade-off, and anyone who _cares_ can just disable it. More than 480p on a
tiny screen _is_ nice sometimes, but I'll take free 480p over the cell network
and watch my 1080p video when I'm at home on wifi.

I also _love_ to be able to stream music for free on T-Mobile. That's a
feature I use all the time. Even my more "fringe" music streaming services are
supported. This doesn't seem to me to be anti-competitive, and T-Mobile isn't
charging anything to stream the music, so I think it's pure awesome.

~~~
bradleyankrom
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I would like to be asked when changes like this
occur. I don't consider it an inconvenience, but then again I care about
things like net neutrality and my privacy.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Well, I heard about it from T-Mobile directly and from several other sources
as it was splashed over the mainstream news, on here, on Reddit, and in other
media. They aren't keeping it a secret. And in every article they mention that
you can disable it; so if you care, you can.

I _strongly_ care about net neutrality, too. And I wouldn't personally care if
they texted me with a "reply with 'disable' to disable Binge On" text message,
but too many people with no clue of the ramifications might disable it.

You'd really need to force people to learn something that 98% of T-Mobile
customers _don 't_ care about -- and I would find it annoying to be forced to
learn something that I personally find obvious.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> I strongly care about net neutrality, too. And I wouldn't personally care if
> they texted me with a "reply with 'disable' to disable Binge On" text
> message, but too many people with no clue of the ramifications might disable
> it.

T-Mobile customer here! My plan supports BingeOn, and I received a text
message from them with a link to a webpage with full details, including
information on how to opt out.

I think they've handled this perfectly. No association other than a satisfied
customer for 14 years.

------
tshtf
Ideally Binge On would only apply to the supported video providers, rather
than throttling all video. However, there are rather three imperfect
approaches to the problem:

1) Hacker's approach: Route all mobile traffic through a VPS/VPN using an
OpenVPN client, available on all relevant mobile platforms. This way your
mobile provider only sees VPN traffic. This will also bypass HTTP header
injection used by Verizon and AT&T for third-party tracking. You won't get the
free bandwidth from Binge On, but at least your provider won't be watching
your traffic.

2) Active customer approach: Turn off Binge on. The problem here is that the
customer won't be able to take advantage of the free video streaming provided
by Binge On.

3) Regulatory approach: Have the FCC enforce net neutrality.

~~~
tertius
Does making it optional remove #3?

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
It is optional. It's just opt-out instead of opt-in.

~~~
tertius
I opted out as soon as I could. I'm on unlimited so it doesn't make sense for
me.

~~~
eli
Never attribute to malice and all that... but it's rather unfortunate that
they silently opted-in customers with unlimited plans who don't really get and
benefits

~~~
ruds
Well, it's one way to mitigate the tragedy of the commons. You don't get much
direct benefit from YOUR bandwidth use being reduced, but you do get benefit
from everyone else's bandwidth use being reduced.

------
plexicle
I've actually just left T-Mobile BECAUSE of the shady stuff they are doing
with Binge-On. The "all of our customers LOVE Binge-On!" is absolutely not
true. Looking at you John.

~~~
Someone1234
You left T-Mobile instead of just turning it off?

~~~
progressive_dad
T-Mobile has had a reputation as a reliable "outsider" with less coverage, but
better business practices than its competitors as well as better rates.

If T-Mobile is going to throw that reputation down the toilet then there is no
reason for me to have 2 bars in my house in downtown Chicago.

~~~
AjithAntony
LTE Personal Cellspot is great!

Also, "two bars" may not actually be bad. If you are getting slow speeds,
dropped calls, etc, then sure that is bad.

~~~
progressive_dad
I get echoey awful voice, and it takes 30 seconds to load hacker news. Ditto
for most of my commute on the "el" (above ground)

------
Klathmon
I have so many problems with T-Mobile's Binge On and this is only making it so
much worse.

So now it's:

* only providers they deem important enough to give the service to can use it (everyone else just gets their requests ignored)

* it MUST be unencrypted to get the no-data-usage benefits (I might be wrong on this one, i can't find where i read this)

* it needs to be done through a "blessed" app or it's not covered (For example, soundcloud is covered, but soundcloud through a browser is not...)

* video in the service needs to be heavily compressed (with no way of showing the user that this is happening or who is doing it or why it's happening)

* Now it comes out that video not even covered by the service must be heavily compressed... Again with no notification to the end users that this is happening, leaving them to point the blame at the site itself (netflix, youtube, etc...) since all other sites work fine.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> * it MUST be unencrypted to get the no-data-usage benefits

I haven't seen that one mentioned anywhere. Clearly they only recognize and
throttle video from other servers when unencrypted (since they don't throttle
other downloads from the same servers), but for services signed up with
T-Mobile's "Binge On", it seems easy enough to ignore the bandwidth usage
based on server IP, rather than sniffing file types. Do they really recognize
the servers they partner with based on traffic sniffing rather than IP?

~~~
Klathmon
I thought all of the music apps that joined their program earlier had that
imposed on them, however I can't seem to find where i read that so i might be
wrong there.

~~~
ianlevesque
It's IP range or http URL pattern matching, we had to provide this information
when we joined the music program. Interestingly they also try to exclude the
related ad traffic, if any, but that's challenging due to how undocumented and
varied ad networks are.

------
fcremo
I have a neat idea: someone should implement a VPN-over-"video", so that all
traffic (or at least server to phone) is not counted against data caps.

~~~
nitrogen
Doesn't sound too difficult, if you don't mind several second ping times.

------
mikeash
This is a good example of why providing some traffic for free (as T-Mobile
previously did with some music services, for example) should still be
considered a net neutrality problem, and be opposed.

ISPs should just be dumb pipes. Route my packets to and from the internet.
Charge me for traffic and be done. Anything beyond that and you get into
perverse incentives where their desires may not line up with those of their
customers.

This sort of video optimization sounds like it _could be_ a valuable service,
but if so then it should be done beyond the ISP level. Set it up as a separate
service, proxy traffic through it, and do it that way.

~~~
ars
> ISPs should just be dumb pipes. Route my packets to and from the internet.
> Charge me for traffic and be done.

You can do that if you want. There are tons of services that charge you per
byte.

They cost more, and people hate them. But if that's important to you, go for
it.

~~~
mikeash
I thought most ISPs were just dumb pipes, and the move away from that is still
pretty limited and proceeding fitfully. As far as I can tell, both my wired
(Verizon) and wireless (AT&T) ISPs work that way right now, for example.

------
Someone1234
It is legitimately worrying that they throttle non-streaming video downloads
and streaming of services which aren't part of BingeOn. There are several
cloud storage solutions which stream the video as it was uploaded (i.e. if it
was 1080p when uploaded, they only stream is back at 1080p), so this scenario
will be absolutely destroyed by BingeOn, making the video unwatchable, plus
any kind of download for offline viewing.

I'm tempted to disable BingeOn after this. I mostly watch YouTube anyway which
isn't even included, but will be limited by this "feature."

------
impostervt
I look forward to the day when Mobile & Cable companies are just dumb pipes of
data.

~~~
ars
And then you pay per byte?

It used to be that way, people hated it.

~~~
sliverstorm
Among techies, the most popular model seems to be the "fixed pipe" model. A
set max data rate, unlimited bytes. Conveniently for them, the model
essentially results in non-techies subsidizing their consumption.

That wouldn't be the case if it wasn't for fractional allocation, but nobody
wants to pay for true fixed allocation.

~~~
Aleman360
The problem is that a max data rate usually doesn't some with an SLA. ISP's
obviously don't have enough bandwidth for all customers to fully utilize 10
gbps 24/7, for example.

Paying based on usage solves that tragedy of the commons problem and works for
utilities.

------
grandalf
This is all an artifact of non-dedicated circuits. With a dedicated T1, for
example, you know what you are getting and the circuit is idle when you are
not using it.

With a shared circuit, advertised "peak" and "average" bandwidth is all
virtual and is managed via QoS, and is based on expected usage patterns and
leveraging the anticipated lulls and peaks. It's very similar to financial
arbitrage.

So it may be the case that reducing the risk of sudden, simultaneous peak
events allows the overall network to be much lower cost and more performant
for other uses.

T-Mobile is trying to squeeze out the most value for its users at the lowest
cost. If a user wants a dedicated circuit, those are available from other
vendors.

Perhaps in the future carriers will offer circuits with QoS specifically
tailored to different categories of users. It seems like custom QoS could be
offered to individual users and priced accordingly. I'd happily tolerate lower
max video download bandwidth in exchange for a lower price b/c I rarely watch
video on my phone.

------
crosre
See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10821781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10821781)
for the typical vendor equipment feature set implementing this kind of
feature. I find individual user profiling as shown in screen captures towards
the end of the document more concerning...

------
frankosaurus
Does Binge On subsume Music Freedom?

The latter let me stream Spotify and Google Play Music without counting
against my data cap. However, something changed around November 2015 whereby
Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music, et al cease to function over T-Mobile
data on all my devices. Even spotify.com is inaccessible.

------
unsignedint
This whole issue could be avoided if T-mobile offered two check boxes instead
of one. One to enable/disable Binge on, and other to apply same process to
unsupported services.

I believe they have been fairly clear to what it does to supported services,
but it was certainly new to me they would do the same to unsupported services
like Youtube.

------
me_again
I was a bit surprised by this statement: "it’s pretty obvious that throttling
all traffic based on application type definitely violates the principles of
net neutrality". Setting aside the specifics of what T-Mobile is doing in thsi
case, I thought the 'neutrality' in net neutrality was about neutrality of
content provider, not content type. If I throttle all bittorrent or video
traffic equally, it might be annoying to my users but I don't see why it is
not neutral.

~~~
wnevets
It is if your definition of neutrality is all packets should be treated
equally regardless of source or contents.

------
derekp7
I actually like this better than the thought of them altering the video stream
themselves -- the video provider would normally have the responsibility of
sending an appropriate bitrate for the current connection speed, and they
would be in a better situation to give the best quality video for a given
bandwidth.

------
bradleyankrom
It took me a while to find the page to opt out of Binge On, so here's the link
for any other TMO customers who want to turn it off:
[https://my.t-mobile.com/profile.html](https://my.t-mobile.com/profile.html)
(under the Media Settings tab).

------
sliverstorm
Reading the bit, it seems like the worst you can say about T-Mobile here is
that the implementation is a little clumsy. I don't get the indignant uproar.
Since when have new ideas been perfect at rollout?

------
tn13
I am happy with T-Mobile's Binge On. Irrespective of what T-Mobile is doing I
would like to keep that service.

------
doctorshady
As much as I want to believe they do, I don't think most people care. Most
Reddit threads on this are 75% "No, no! It's different because T-Mobile!" .

