Announced several days ago, the latest plan by T-Mobile brings an end to tiered plans and offers only one, unlimited plan. But after reading the fine print, the EFF says the plan violates net neutrality.
Net Neutrality
Net neutrality is a topic that deserves its own article. However, the basic principle is that internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the internet the same. They shouldn’t discriminate based on user, content, website, platform, application, hardware or mode of communication. Unfortunately, this goes against the type of rabid capitalism that Silicon Valley holds dear.
T-Mobile One
The new plan removes tiered data plans and offers unlimited data. It sounds good on the surface, but this does away with cheaper plans, including Pay-As-You-Go. The plan doesn’t cap 4G LTE data based on a monthly allotment. Instead, customers who use more than 26GB of data per month – about 3% – will have their speeds throttled.
Net neutrality activists are more concerned about how T-Mobile will treat streaming video. Customers will have their videos limited to streaming in 480p quality. In order to watch videos in a higher quality, you’ll have to fork over an extra $25/month per line.
Senior staff technologist of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told the Daily Dot:
“From what we’ve read thus far it seems like T-Mobile’s new plan to charge its customers extra to not throttle video runs directly afoul of the principle of net neutrality.”
In a bold move, T-Mobile CEO John Legere challenged the EFF, saying:
“Who the fuck are you, anyway, EFF? Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?”
.@EFF pic.twitter.com/pv6V4oOJwS
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) January 7, 2016
A spokesperson for the FCC said that “the Commission’s informal policy review is ongoing. Chairman Wheeler said the Commission would keep an eye on new developments in this area and we are continuing to do so.”
Umm, that’s a very inflammatory Legere quote, but it’s definitely not in the context of the current events. Your screenshot even shows the date as January 7th, well before T-Mobile One was announced.
The title of the article is wrong. It assumes that EFF is right but since even they haven’t seen how it works yet (only read about it), the assumption shouldn’t be validated.
I think T-Mobile has definitely crossed the line with net neutrality here, but the article is conflating Legere’s response to the EFF digging into Binge On, back in January, with this current situation. Legere apologized for his remarks when he found out about the EFF.
Binge On by itself didn’t violate net neutrality, but this move certainly seems to.
Legere is so fucked
Anyone who used AT&T between the time the iPhone 3G was released and LTE became available would rather have these new T-Mobile plans as-is instead of having true unlimited data on a slow network where apps are timing out all the time. The EFF should stop whining like little kids.
I hope they get sued.. they’ve been using fine print and lies/scams for far too long. It’s not unlimited high speed data unless ALL your data is “high speed” If it throttles certain types of data and leaves the rest high speed that’s a big issue. This makes you not unlimited because there are limits
I don’t get the concerns. I’m on a 6gb plan and thereis simply no way I could watch hd video with busting my limit, tethering and I’m essentially in the same boat. With the new plan, I get unlimited data, yes I realize if I use 26gb I well get a lower priority, and my bill for me and my wife goes down. I feel like all the complaints are about one type of user and ignores everyone else.