Stanford Professor: T-Mobile is Clearly Violating Net Neutrality Stanford law professor and net neutrality expert Professor Barbara van Schewick has filed a study with the FCC (pdf) that insists T-Mobile's Binge On program clearly violates net neutrality, "harms competition, innovation and free speech" and is "likely illegal." Across 51 pages, Schewick offers more than a dozen reasons why she's come to this conclusion regarding the program, which throttles all video services that touch the T-Mobile network to 1.5 Mbps, regardless of whether the content is streamed or directly downloaded.

"A core principle of net neutrality is that ISPs should not pick winners and losers online by favoring some applications over others," notes the study. "But that’s exactly what Binge On does. Customers have a greater incentive to watch videos that are included in Binge On than those that are excluded. As a result, providers in the program can be more successful than providers that T-Mobile leaves out." And while Binge On may not be as ham-fisted as other zero rating efforts (like Comcast exempting its own streaming service from its caps, or Verizon requesting payment to make content cap-exempt), the precedent of letting carriers fiddle with traffic in this fashion is just as problematic, notes Schewick. "The thirty-eight providers currently in Binge On deliver mostly commercial video entertainment – not user-generated, educational or non-profit video," she notes. "If T-Mobile continues to favor entertainment from commercial providers over other content, it turns the mobile Internet offered by T-Mobile into an optimal platform for commercial entertainment at the expense of all other speakers." As it stands, the FCC's net neutrality rules contain three "bright-line" restrictions prohibiting ISPs from blocking, throttling (discriminating against specific applications or classes of traffic), and paid prioritization (charging apps or content for preferential treatment). But the rules also include a "general conduct rule" to prohibit practices that harm Internet openness but are not already banned by the bright-line rules. That can include zero rating, which isn't specifically banned but will be addressed on a "case-by-case basis." "Based on the findings of this report, Binge On harms Internet openness as defined by the Order" and violates key net neutrality principles that the Open Internet rules are designed to protect," argues Schewick. "Binge On puts T-Mobile in the position of a gatekeeper that picks winners and losers online, regardless of the ISP’s intentions," the report continues. "The program constrains how people use the Internet: It limits users’ ability to use the applications, content, and services of their choice. The program is not application-agnostic: It favors video providers included in the program over those that are not, commercial entertainment over other forms of video content, and online video over other kinds of Internet uses. And it violates the principle of innovation without permission." "As a result, Binge On harms competition, innovation, and free speech– all harms that the general conduct rule is meant to prevent," states Schewick. "Taken all together, it is likely that Binge On violates the general conduct rule and is therefore illegal." Of course the FCC still has to declare that Binge On violates net neutrality, and it's simply not clear that's going to happen. The FCC has gone out of its was to re-iterate that inquiries it's making of T-Mobile, AT&T, Comcast and now-likely Verizon are part of an "information exercise" and not a formal investigation. FCC boss Tom Wheeler himself has called T-Mobile's Binge On program "innovative" and "pro competition" despite complaints from the EFF that T-Mobile is throttling every video service that touches its network to a default 1.5 Mbps. By allowing users to "opt out," T-Mobile incorrectly believes it's tap-dancing over and around any problems. Numerous countries (Japan, Slovenia, The Netherlands, Chile) banned zero rating outright in their own net neutrality rules to avoid the exact kind of slippery slope we now find ourselves camped out upon. The FCC thought it made sense to apply a case-by-case approach to zero rating so the industry could experiment with "creative" pricing, but that may be a problem when the very precedent set by zero rating opens the door to all manner of "creative" discrimination and anti-competitive shenanigans. While T-Mobile's Binge On may be the "best" of a bad crop of zero rating ideas, the public may come to regret that the FCC didn't take a harder-line when it comes to preventing carriers from using arbitrary usage caps and zero rating as a competitive weapon. While T-Mobile's Binge On may be the "best" of a bad crop of zero rating ideas, the public may come to regret that the FCC didn't take a harder-line when it comes to preventing carriers from using arbitrary usage caps and zero rating as a competitive weapon.







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Most recommended from 137 comments



cb14

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16 recommendations cb14 Member Stating the obvious You do not have to be a Stanford professor to see that.

It's amazing what" free" can do to cloud sound judgment. The binge pro Binge propaganda on this forum is a prime example for that. I like TMUS, they are my main cell provider, but they are dead wrong on this issue and they opened the floodgates for those far less scrupulous. 8744675

join:2000-10-10

Decatur, GA 6 recommendations 8744675 Member I think ISP's are testing the limits of net neutrality It seems like all of the ISP's are pushing the limits of net neutrality with these new plans, to see what they can get away with before being slapped down by the FCC. Most of these plans fall into the gray areas of whether or not they violate the rules. If the FCC doesn't push back, they'll push the limits a little more until net neutrality rules don't mean squat.



Now is the time for the FCC to nip it in the bud. You can't put the genie back in the bottle once it's out.



I think T-mobile throttling all video to 1.5 Mbps is clearly a violation by treating video data differently than other data. I'm surprised the MPAA isn't on their case for "altering their content by degrading the video quality and customer viewing experience" by slowing down the streams. MountainDude

join:2015-12-03

Colorado Springs, CO ZTE MF910

4 recommendations MountainDude Member More than just video and music I've found Windows updates, Amazon app store preview videos and pictures (but not the actual app downloads), 4chan and 7chan to be zero-rated. They don't count against my data at all, plus they come through at incredible uncapped speed after I hit my data limit. And that's especially surprising especially given the content of the latter.



Like I've said, why not zero-rate Google Earth or Wikipedia instead of hentai and amateur porn? It's been like this for about a year. Maybe they all use the same cloud servers or something. I've also had ads blocked, returned with strange "server refused the connection" errors.



Not that I mind some of this stuff, but I'd rather just have an unfiltered network with a higher data limit so I could browse, say DeviantArt or 500px for wallpapers instead of "blessed" imageboards (others like 420chan and konachan aren't zero-rated :/)



BingeOn partner video though, ceases to be zero-rated after you reach your data limit. It's all throttled to 128kbps (64kbps for some customers, like my old prepaid account) after.

GlennLouEarl

3 brothers, 1 gone

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Richmond, VA 3 recommendations GlennLouEarl Premium Member Who funded her study? She apparently just claimed that it's illegal to prioritize VoIP traffic over basic browsing and downloading, and that all traffic should be treated exactly the same as all other traffic. That's not what net neutrality means to me.



The core principle of net neutrality is that the users/customers get to decide what they want for themselves and not have the ISP force its greedy fingers into our pockets by favoring its own "options" (and then the ISP extorts money from content providers anyway). Exile714

join:2015-08-19 2 recommendations Exile714 Member It's not paid T-Mobile isn't charging companies to pay for inclusion, so it's open to any entity which agrees to provisions which limit bandwidth usage. If zero-rating is reviewed on a case-by-case basis I can't see how this particular program can run afoul of the law.



And while we're on the topic, the automatic limiting of non-Binge On content is incredibly consumer friendly, especially if there is an opt out for better quality for those who want to waste their data.