An un-wise response —

John Legere asks EFF, “Who the f**k are you, and who pays you?”

T-Mobile CEO takes on digital rights group that objected to video throttling.

Jon Brodkin - Jan 8, 2016 1:26 am UTC

T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere has spent much of today defending the carrier's controversial "Binge On" program, and he didn't hold much back when answering his critics.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has criticized T-Mobile for throttling video streams down to 480p, asked him on Twitter whether T-Mobile is altering the video streams or just limiting their bandwidth.

Legere responded in a video:

What Binge On does, it includes a proprietary technology and what the technology does is not only detect the video stream but select the appropriate bit rate to optimize to the video, the mobile device. That’s part A of my answer. Part B of my answer is, who the fuck are you, anyway, EFF? Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?

.@EFF pic.twitter.com/pv6V4oOJwS

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) January 7, 2016

EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman responded with a blog post titled, "Friends, Please Tell T-Mobile’s CEO About EFF," pointing out that it is "an advocacy organization fighting for civil liberties in the digital world," supported by donations from tens of thousands of people. (Ars readers are among those donors.)

The EFF isn't the only critic of Binge On, but it helped push the debate to a new level with tests that showed T-Mobile is limiting video streams and downloads to about 1.5Mbps.

Binge On downgrades quality of video in order to save data and exempts video services from data caps if the provider of the video service meets some technical criteria. The throttling is turned on by default, but users can disable it.

The EFF accused T-Mobile of violating net neutrality rules, but it's not a clear-cut case as we explained earlier today. T-Mobile will be meeting with the Federal Communications Commission soon to discuss whether Binge On complies with net neutrality rules.

Legere received a lot of reply tweets criticizing his response to the EFF, with one saying, "Are you high John?! The EFF has been a huge part of ensuring digital rights for decades."

Legere backed off a bit after his initial response, tweeting that he's not waging a "personal campaign against @EFF."

"Let me be clear- I know who the @EFF is," he added. "I’m sure they do a lot of great things for a lot of consumers, but innovation can be controversial!"

Promoted Comments

fuzzyfuzzyfungusArs Scholae Palatinae
jump to post

So, let me get this straight: a US telco CEO is hating on the EFF with vague allegations of deriving their funding by sleazy means?

That's, um, quite some self awareness there tiger.

2346 posts | registered Jul 2, 2012
StatisticalArs Tribunus Militumet Subscriptor
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Chuckstar wrote:
show nested quotes
I guess innovation is the new buzzword, like job creators. Because I keep hearing how companies like Comcast instituting 300GB data caps to only then roll out their own streaming service that doesn't count against their cap (when everybody else does) is somehow innovative.

T-Mobile's bandwidth management isn't innovative, it's just bandwidth management. And at least wireless connectivity does have real hard limits that doesn't affect wireline broadband provided by the likes of Comcast. Plus the limits don't count against data caps and that includes pretty much everyone. But innovation? Really? QoS isn't new, hasn't been since the dawn of networking.

This isn't "just" QoS. T-Mobile isn't limiting you bandwidth. You can watch the movie and still download app updates in the background. Binge On has the video provider limiting the bandwidth, in a way that is verifiable to T-Mobile. That way T-Mobile can account separately for bandwidth you use that is 480p (or less) video vs other stuff.

Nope they are throttling all video to 1.5Mbps even if they aren't exempt. Throttling by another name is still throttling. How exactly is T-Mobile having youtube limit the bandwidth when youtube isn't even a participating partner? The simple answer is they aren't. T-mobile is throttling your connection and thus preventing clean playback of video higher than 1.5 Mbps (~480p). That is the complaint by EFF is despite T-Mobile's slick marketing it isn't optimization with select partners it is across the board throttling and then some select partners are zero rated but everything is throttled.

Note: For the most part I am a happy T-Mobile customer and I love the fact they had solid prepaid plans that worked with unlocked phones for years. The way they launched BingeOn and the doublespeak in their defense of it is just sleazy though.

2669 posts | registered Sep 27, 2010

Promoted Comments

fuzzyfuzzyfungusArs Scholae Palatinae
jump to post

So, let me get this straight: a US telco CEO is hating on the EFF with vague allegations of deriving their funding by sleazy means?

That's, um, quite some self awareness there tiger.

2346 posts | registered Jul 2, 2012
StatisticalArs Tribunus Militumet Subscriptor
jump to post

Chuckstar wrote:
show nested quotes
I guess innovation is the new buzzword, like job creators. Because I keep hearing how companies like Comcast instituting 300GB data caps to only then roll out their own streaming service that doesn't count against their cap (when everybody else does) is somehow innovative.

T-Mobile's bandwidth management isn't innovative, it's just bandwidth management. And at least wireless connectivity does have real hard limits that doesn't affect wireline broadband provided by the likes of Comcast. Plus the limits don't count against data caps and that includes pretty much everyone. But innovation? Really? QoS isn't new, hasn't been since the dawn of networking.

This isn't "just" QoS. T-Mobile isn't limiting you bandwidth. You can watch the movie and still download app updates in the background. Binge On has the video provider limiting the bandwidth, in a way that is verifiable to T-Mobile. That way T-Mobile can account separately for bandwidth you use that is 480p (or less) video vs other stuff.

Nope they are throttling all video to 1.5Mbps even if they aren't exempt. Throttling by another name is still throttling. How exactly is T-Mobile having youtube limit the bandwidth when youtube isn't even a participating partner? The simple answer is they aren't. T-mobile is throttling your connection and thus preventing clean playback of video higher than 1.5 Mbps (~480p). That is the complaint by EFF is despite T-Mobile's slick marketing it isn't optimization with select partners it is across the board throttling and then some select partners are zero rated but everything is throttled.

Note: For the most part I am a happy T-Mobile customer and I love the fact they had solid prepaid plans that worked with unlocked phones for years. The way they launched BingeOn and the doublespeak in their defense of it is just sleazy though.

2669 posts | registered Sep 27, 2010

Jon Brodkin Jon has been a reporter for Ars Technica since 2011 and covers a wide array of telecom and tech policy topics. Jon graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism and has been a full-time journalist for over 20 years.

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