NEW YORK — T-Mobile and YouTube have come to terms after a spat over the phone company’s Binge On video streaming service. As a result, most T-Mobile customers can now watch YouTube videos without using cellphone data.
T-Mobile in November had begun letting customers stream video from a few dozen providers, including Netflix, Hulu and HBO, without using phone data. Alphabet-owned YouTube didn’t like that T-Mobile then delivered all video — even video from companies that hadn’t joined Binge On — in DVD-level quality, which is worse than HD. YouTube and others, including digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, criticized this as throttling, which the government’s net neutrality rules don’t permit.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in a video posted online that the charge was “a game of semantics” because customers could opt out and stream higher-quality video. Customers would use more data if they did that.
Proponents of net neutrality, the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all traffic equally, are concerned about efforts by T-Mobile and other ISPs, including Verizon, AT&T and Comcast, to exempt some video or other online activities from data caps. They worry that could lead to some Internet companies paying cable and phone businesses for better access to consumers, hurting other Internet companies that can’t afford to pay. (T-Mobile doesn’t charge video companies to participate in Binge On.)
