Back in November, T-Mobile introduced a program called Binge On that would allow customers to stream an unlimited amount of video to their devices without it counting toward their data plan, as long as that video came from one of their partners.
Today, the firm has announced a number of new partners, including YouTube, Baeble Music, Discovery Go, ESNE TV, FilmOn.TV, Fox Business, Google Play Movies, KlowdTV, and Red Bull TV, bringing the grand total to 52 Binge On partners.
This is very significant news for T-Mobile subscribers, as YouTube has been an issue of controversy for the service. First, here's how Binge On works:
When the user attempts to watch a video, it downgrades the video to a lower resolution, thus using less cellular data. The point of controversy is that Binge On doesn't just downgrade the videos that are broadcast from partners, but all streaming video. Users would report additional lag from sites such as YouTube, citing the fact that non-partners didn't have the proper technology in place as the reason.
There is also speculation that the service violates Net Neutrality, since some video sources don't count toward the user's data cap but other video sources do. T-Mobile CEO John Legere refuted this accusation by stating that the service is open for any video provider to join.
In a step toward ending this controversy, the firm is also allowing for video content providers to opt out of the program, or choose which videos get downgraded when streaming. According to Google's blog post, this was what got them on board.
There is no doubt that YouTube was the biggest thing missing from T-Mobile's Binge On program. The firm states that the combined Binge On partners make up for 70% of all video streamed on their devices.
Source: CNET
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