"T-Mobile has critics, including Barbara van Schewick, a law professor who directs Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. She recently wrote a lengthy report arguing that Binge On violates key net neutrality principles. (A summary is here.)
T-Mobile is "picking winners and losers" by making some kinds of content more attractive to users than others and by favoring services that are in the Binge On program, van Schewick argued.
"Customers on T-Mobile’s lowest qualifying plan can watch 'unlimited' video from Netflix and other Binge On providers, but not more than 4½ hours of video per month, or 9 minutes a day, from providers not in the program," van Schewick wrote.
Though T-Mobile argues that Binge On is open to any provider, van Schewick writes that there are "substantial technical requirements" to qualify.
The technical requirements published on T-Mobile's website "categorically exclude providers that use the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), making it impossible for innovative providers such as YouTube to join," van Schewick wrote. "They discriminate against providers that use encryption, a practice that is becoming the industry standard. While some providers can join easily, a significant number will need to work with T-Mobile to determine whether their service can be part of Binge On. Many will have to invest time and resources to adapt their service to T-Mobile’s systems. The smaller the provider, the longer it will likely take for T-Mobile to get to it."
YouTube developed a protocol called QUIC that relies on UDP and improves online video performance, van Schewick noted. But this disqualifies YouTube from Binge On.
"Anybody developing video streaming applications now has a choice: Use UDP, which might be the best technical option for their application, or forgo the benefits of UDP just to qualify for Binge On," she wrote."
- Date Published:02/05/2016
- Original Publication:Ars Technica