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Binge On is one of the latest uncarrier moves from T-Mobile and ever since its first introduction, it has been one which has courted controversy. This first manifested when claims came though that the service could be in breach of Net Neutrality regulations, although it seems the FCC did not seem to think so. Then came the claims that Binge On was throttling video speeds, compared to those who make use of the likes of Netflix without the use of Binge On. Another aspect which amassed a good deal of criticism in the following weeks.
However, it looked as though T-Mobile was beginning to put the initial criticisms of Binge On behind them, as recently more video content providers has started to jump aboard. The most recent of which is probably the most headlining one, YouTube. T-Mobile announced yesterday that after some tweaking to the system YouTube had finally joined the program. The confirmation came along with a video that outspoken T-Mobile CEO John Legere posted to his Twitter account. Although, the confirmation of YouTube was not the only thing Legere commented on. While talking about Binge On in general and the criticisms of reducing resolution down to 480p, Legere claimed that both AT&T and Verizon actually reduce their video resolutions even lower, down to 360p. A claim Legere stated along with a “I’ll bet you didn’t know that” comment.
As you might have expected, AT&T and Verizon have now come out in defense of their services and both have flat out denied the accusations by Legere. In terms of AT&T, the company was noted stating that they do not reduce resolution at all and that T-Mobile were misleading consumers with this statement. According to AT&T, “Once again, T-Mobile is not giving you the complete facts“. Further adding, “in fact, our customers on 4G LTE can get much higher resolution than T-Mobile’s optimized 480p limit.” While from Verizon’s side, Chuck Hamby made it clear that Verizon also does not control video speeds on their network by stating “Playback over LTE varies on network speeds, and we don’t set a speed.” Again, further drawing on the point that there is no grounding to the claims made by John Legere by adding,”It’s just a dopey claim and has no basis in fact at all.”