T-Mobile’s Binge On sounded like a great deal – all you can watch movies and videos that don’t eat into your bandwidth? Sign me up! However it didn’t take long before video platforms like YouTube accused T-Mobile of throttling them, presumably in favor of other video services that the carrier has partnered with for Binge On.The carrier responded by saying that they did not throttle YouTube, but rather they were “optimizing” the platform for bandwidth. However according to a recent test conducted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the results of their testing has certainly seemed to corroborate YouTube’s claims of throttling.
This was not just limited to YouTube, but also content such as HTML5 streaming and direct downloads. As you can see in the graph above, with Binge On enabled, speeds have dropped drastically compared to the speeds that users experienced with the feature off. According to them, “T-Mobile has claimed that this practice isn’t really “throttling,” but we disagree. It’s clearly not “optimization,” since T-Mobile doesn’t alter the actual content of the video streams in any way.”
To that end, the EFF has suggested that T-Mobile should stop throttling videos from providers who haven’t signed up to be part of Binge On. Alternatively they also note that Binge On should be an opt-in process, as opposed to opt-out as some customers might not be familiar with it. Lastly they even suggest that if T-Mobile does not do something about it, the FCC should investigate it.