With T-Mobile's Binge On, everybody wins, according to a Friday study from P3 Insights.

The study discovered that Binge On is leading T-Mobile customers to use video apps more often and longer, but only to consume the same amount of data they did before, because T-Mobile "caps the transmission speed of video content."

The crowdsourced study, which used an app installed on more than 1,000 T-Mobile customers' phones, is the first time any independent analysts have looked at the effects of the new program on T-Mobile's network. Binge On has been controversial for possibly violating net neutrality, as T-Mobile and consumer advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation debate whether the data-saving program is a consumer boon or an imposition on content providers' rights.

P3 sees Binge On as good for users, who get to watch more video; good for providers, who have more video exposed to users; and good for T-Mobile, which wrings more usage out of the same network capacity.

But ultimately, P3 says that the EFF and T-Mobile are at least partially correct in their accusations. "The P3 study confirms the finding of the EFF that the bandwidth for the downlink transmission...is limited to about 1.5Mbit/s, independent of the kind of app or service being used," the company says.

T-Mobile says that it requests lower-quality video streams from providers. The EFF says T-Mobile throttles bandwidth and forces the video providers to cope. The subtle distinction there helps shape the debate over whether T-Mobile is cooperatively working with video providers or disrupting its systems.

Binge On Users Watch More Video

Although Binge On video streams are lower quality, users watch more of them, the report says. The panel says they had 5-10 percent more app sessions per day, watching video 15-50 percent longer than they did before, according to P3. Binge On users watched Netflix and Hulu 50 percent longer per app session, and watched YouTube 16 percent longer.

And Binge On optimizes data across all video-supporting apps, including some you might not think of, P3 found. Video throughput in the Samsung Web browser dropped by 50 percent, as did video throughput (probably mostly ads) in the game Panda Pop.

All of this happens with relatively little effect on the T-Mobile network, P3 says. Average data transfer across all Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube sessions decreased to 72MB from 83MB before Binge On, the report says.

"This means that T-Mobile has successfully managed to carry more video traffic, while maintaining or even decreasing the load on its network," the report says.

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