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T-Mobile CEO to EFF: ‘Who the Fuck Are You?’

300 points by tshtf 11y ago

arianvanp 11y ago
Now that I gave it another thought. Isn't the only way to comply with net neutrality to throttle _all_ video instead of certain video? And isn't that exactly what T-mobile is trying to do here? It still sucks because it is misleading, but I sort of get where they're coming from.
- adenadel 11y ago
  I'm not a T-mobile customer, but I guess the "BingeOn" feature is supposed to stop the throttling for certain video providers.
  - wmf 11y ago
    No, I think it throttles all video. OK, maybe it doesn't throttle video providers who voluntarily throttle themselves, but the result is the same.
    - adenadel 11y ago
      Yeah, I misread. Binge On makes it so that the data from certain providers doesn't count against your data limit, but leads to throttling of all videos.
  - tzs 11y ago
    If you have Binge On turned on: all video is throttled, but video from a large number of sources does not count against your data cap. If you have Binge On turned off: video is not throttled, but it all counts against your data cap. You can switch between on and off as often as you want.
- deleted 11y ago
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- deleted 11y ago
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- vhold 11y ago
  No, because throttling a kind of traffic is also non-neutrality. Imagine cable companies throttling video, phone companies throttling VoIP, etc.
Someone1234 11y ago
We pay the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Consumers, geeks, and the privacy/digital rights inclined. They're doing exactly what donors want them to be doing, including this Binge On thing (which is part of a larger Net Neutrality struggle). I am a T-Mobile customer. And when they first introduced Binge On I was mostly happy (Net Neutrality notwithstanding): seemed like a fair trade, for certain sites you lost video bandwidth but in return received unlimited streaming. However T-Mobile's implementation is bad and worse still they weren't honest about what Binge On does. It is a completely different arrangement between ONLY limiting sites that signed up, and interfering in third parties who did not, and don't even get me started on limiting video file download rates (i.e. not streaming). The CEO is just acting like an idiot. Consumer rights groups, like the EFF, are completely entitled to "stir things up" when large national corporations start acting poorly. If you guys didn't want to be called out, perhaps you could have been more honest to begin with? So as a T-Mobile customer, I am 100% behind EFF on this one. If they started attacking the EFF regularly I'll change networks (e.g. Project Fi), because I value the EFF more than T-Mobile. PS - Amazon's Smile.Amazon.com supports EFF donations, as an aside.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  @EFF: "T-Mobile's CEO is dying to know who EFF is. Friends, please tweet at @JohnLegere with the hashtag #WeAreEFF to enlighten him." https://twitter.com/EFF/status/685216654398099456 https://twitter.com/EFF/status/685216654398099456
  - mattl 11y ago
    https://twitter.com/mattl/status/685224731667087360 https://twitter.com/mattl/status/685224731667087360
    - jshevek 11y ago
      Well done!
- epistasis 11y ago
  I really like the concept of the EFF, and really like most of their work, but when I was reading their blog I quickly started to feel like they go off half-cocked too often. When I first saw summaries of their report my guess was just that there in turning BingeOn on/off on a single account, or that there were temporary configuration problems on T-Mobile's side. Some people like the idea of supporting an out-there extreme to keep the Overton window shifted to an appropriate place. I can see the logic in it, but I value truth first. T-mobile's CEO's schtick is to act like this, and I don't really appreciate that much either, but I do appreciate T-mobile's small movements to make the cell phone market more fluid by getting rid of contracts, and I also still like BingeOn. It gives me more control over my data than Netflix or Amazon or whomever gives me.
diebir 11y ago
He's not going to be the CEO for much longer. Quite probably, being too smart is detrimental to CEO career, but being obviously dumb in interactions with the media is not tolerated at all. There was once a CEO of Seagate that could not contain himself and said something to the effect that people "buy drives to store porn". He was gone soon there after.
- stonogo 11y ago
  I think you're vastly overestimating the repercussions here. John Legere has built his reputation on saying crazy shit; this is a drop in the bucket.
  - sremani 11y ago
    Along with outspokeness, John Legere has started many things at T-Mobile the rest of the industry adopted. He is not a lose cannon, like people are portraying here.
    - CaptSpify 11y ago
      Why not both? He seems like a loose cannon, but one that often hits the mark. Sometimes it takes someone who is a little crazy to go against the bigger players.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  Historically these types of outbursts when aimed at unpopular entities (e.g. other carriers) have been fairly popular and working well for him/them. Problem is that they misunderstood the sentiment surrounding BingeOn and perhaps the EFF in general. I think he'll survive this one, and hopefully learns from it, but we'll see... He has started to back down on Twitter already (if you look at his tweets from 30 minutes ago).
- yuhong 11y ago
  I have been thinking about Yishan style CEOs for a while now, as well as things like https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/679947535591473156 https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/679947535591473156
jackmoore 11y ago
Just wanted to remind folks that you can support the EFF through AmazonSmile.
- jkaunisv1 11y ago
  Never heard of AmazonSmile. Is it just regular Amazon but they donate a % to charity? Does it offer only a subset of their products? I'm looking for the catch but I can't see it.
  - URSpider94 11y ago
    It's just an overlay on Amazon.com that lets you designate a charity to receive a small percentage of your purchases as a donation. If you can buy it on Amazon, you can buy it on smile.amazon -- because they are the same site.
  - fred256 11y ago
    The catch is that you have to remember to type smile.amazon.com.
williesleg 11y ago
George Soros is a moron.
neumino 11y ago
He thought he could pick on EFF like he does on other carriers. That was his worst move so far.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I'm more likely to stop contributing to the EFF than paying T-Mobile for cellular service, in the grand scheme of things.
  - geofft 11y ago
    Is their service that good? As a current T-Mobile US customer, it looks like I can get an equivalent plan from Sprint for approximately the same cost, mostly thanks to T-Mobile's aggressive competition.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      I've had friends who couldn't get their Sprint service to work on major streets in downtown Chicago, but my T-Mobile service worked on the Playa at Burning Man, not to mention that I get free edge data in 140 countries: "Only from T-Mobile, our Simple Choice Plan makes it simple for you to stay in touch while you explore the world. Now get unlimited data and texting in 95% of the places you travel most—140+ countries and destinations around the globe. Oh, and calls? They’re just 20 cents a minute." There's a reason I've used them for 14 years.
      - geofft 11y ago
        Hrm, anecdotally I've had real trouble with international data roaming in places I'd have expected to be decently covered with cell service, like cafes in Leith. It's a nice bonus when it works, but since it's not even reliable enough for emergencies, it's not worth any carrier loyalty. I'm curious if it worked for you. Isn't Commnet trying to provide actual cell service at Burning Man? I feel like if you have a company specifically trying to make cell service work in the middle of the desert, with no metal buildings anywhere, it's totally unsurprising that it works.
deleted 11y ago
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DanBC 11y ago
> it includes a proprietary technology and what the technology does is not only detect the video stream, but select the appropriate bitrate to optimize to the mobile device, This sounds okay if you don't think about it too much. I've seen what a piss-poor job T-Mobile does of image optimising, and so I feel sorry for the people stuck on the other end of a T-Mobile connection having their videos fiddled with. It's not just image quality that suffers, everything about it is stupid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484081
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  It's only going to be really scary when CPU time becomes cheap enough to re-encode videos on the fly (are we there already?). I can see some nefarious uses of watermarking, or on the extreme end, OpenCV and motion tracking for some enhanced product placement.
  - AjithAntony 11y ago
    Lots of mobile carriers already do this with Bytemobile (recently acquired by Citrix) https://www.citrix.com/products/bytemobile-adaptive-traffic-management/overview.html https://www.citrix.com/products/bytemobile-adaptive-traffic-...
dogma1138 11y ago
Is this guy an alumni of the John McAfee school of management? Never heard of him before but now I've watched some of his other stuff on YouTube some of it is pure gold....
denova 11y ago
T-Mobile customers, feel free to write to them at: T-Mobile Customer Relations P.O. Box 37380 Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380 I couldn't find an email address.
jrcii 11y ago
I'm not sure how Steve Buscemi got to be CEO of T-Mobile but he's making a big mistake picking a fight with the EFF.
mxxx 11y ago
Gee that video really made me cringe. Hey, maybe if we dress the CEO in a hoodie, put him in front of an electric guitar with his batman figurines and make him say edgy things like "bullshit" a couple of times, the kids will relate to him! Cowabunga dudes!
- cheald 11y ago
  This isn't a new tack. It's pretty consistent with Legere's whole schtick.
  - ellisv 11y ago
    and it even seems to be working: http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/t-mobile-added-another-8-3-million-customers-in-2015/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/t-mobile-added-anoth...
- lavezzi 11y ago
  I think it's pretty genuine on his part. I was walking through Central Park back in November and some dude dressed in top to toe Pink, sporting T-Mobile logos galore ran past me. It was Legere.
silveira 11y ago
Ok, I'm making a donation to EFF.
etjossem 11y ago
John Legere is the CEO of a multinational telecommunications company. Of course he knows what the EFF is. At first, he was just trying to explain BingeOn to T-Mobile customers in a favorable way - "optimization for mobile devices to stretch the data available on your plan." And that's exactly what an informed consumer should expect him to say. You're not going to hear the words "reduced quality by default" or "sweetheart deals with content providers" come from the mouth of a man with fiduciary duty to T-Mobile. But trying to discredit the EFF will blow up in his face. If auto company execs feigned ignorance about Consumer Reports and Kelley Blue Book, we'd laugh at them. It's a transparent way to avoid answering the questions these consumer watchdog groups raise.
- frik 11y ago
  > informed consumer Even in this HN thread there are several persons who either work for T-Mobile or are starry-eyed.
karcass 11y ago
He's the Trump of Telecom
- bradleyankrom 11y ago
  I don't think that's the kind of personality I want speaking for a company I'm entrusting with my communications data. Save the schtick for a lifestyle brand. The EFF isn't TMO's competition, there's no reason for a profanity-laced response from the goddamn CEO of a global telecom (particularly a telecom that already attracts attention from antitrust watchdogs).
fastball 11y ago
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, Binge On is obviously targeted at customers who have limited data plans and seem likely to go over their cap if they watch video normally. Many (most?) streaming sites don't provide fine-grained control over what quality is delivered to your device. Seems like a lot still just differentiate between "normal" and "HD". So it seems to me like T-Mobile is trying to help their limited customers out by lowering the bandwidth on videos so that data is used up a slower rate. I personally have an unlimited data plan, so I can't even provide anecdotal evidence, but if I had a limited plan, I think I would appreciate that. Once bitrate management is in place, throttling doesn't seem like a big deal. As long as I am still being delivered data at a rate > the rate at which I am consuming the video (i.e. as long as there is no buffering) then there isn't really a problem, right? If you disagree with T-Mobile's decision to choose what bitrate is good for you, then yeah, I understand, this sucks. If, on the other hand, you are OK with this, then I don't really think there is an issue. What I think would be the best option would be for T-Mobile to have some sort of control panel that customers could use to pick a bitrate cap for all videos that they watch on their mobile plan. Seems like that could please both parties if they started with a fairly restrictive default setting but users could change it.
- shkkmo 11y ago
  The problem is that Binge On is not just 'choosing what bitrate is good for you' but is also throttling all video data, including direct downloads. > The EFF post found that T-Mobile isn’t actually “optimizing” any video traffic for Binge On users, it’s merely throttling it. Not all video players on all websites have the capability to down-res a video from, for example, 1080p to 480p. That means some videos on some websites using some players must be watched at their original resolution (due to T-Mobile’s guidelines, these will inherently not be Binge On services). Even though this hypothetical 1080p video would count against both a Binge On customer’s data cap and a non Binge On customer’s data cap, one without Binge On will stream the 1080p video at a speed as fast as the network can go; one with Binge On will stream it at 1.5 Mbps, a speed that makes it arguably un-streamable. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/t-mobiles-binge-on-indiscriminately-throttles-all-video-content http://motherboard.vice.com/read/t-mobiles-binge-on-indiscri... I've been a fan of John Legere's antics and efforts to push for innovation in the US carrier industry. However this sort of attack on the EFF and blatant lying/misinformation about throttling is a shyster move.
placeybordeaux 11y ago
Off topic: Who the hell edited this video? There are an insane amount of cuts.
- ibejoeb 11y ago
  T-mobile certainly adopted the youtube-style vlog jump cut scheme. It's not for everyone, but it has certainly been on-trend for a long while now. He's also tweeting selfie video responses; I think it's good that he's participating in the culture to which he caters. More discussion: https://www.quora.com/Internet-Culture/Why-do-popular-YouTube-vlogs-purposely-overuse-jump-cuts https://www.quora.com/Internet-Culture/Why-do-popular-YouTub...
mahouse 11y ago
The EFF? A liberal lobby.
- jshevek 11y ago
  Not at all. The EFF cares about free speech. Is that a liberal position? Too many liberals that I know do not care enough about free speech. The EFF cares about privacy. Is that a liberal issue? I know people all across the political spectrum who care about privacy.
  - thescriptkiddie 11y ago
    Not sure if you're an American or not, but the guy you're replying to probably is. In the US, "liberal" has a different meaning than it does elsewhere. Privacy, freedom of speech, and personal liberties in general are core tenets of American liberalism.
kin 11y ago
IMO he's upset because he feels like T-Mobile is very much on the side of the customers. As a T-Mobile customer I certainly feel that way. Free unlimited streaming for music and video? Unlimited streaming on all content for the holidays? He talks about how the industry is corrupt and T-Mobile started the Jump! program which is awesome. They are also huge in the contract-free movement. I'm also pretty sure he's unaware of how Binge On works from a technical standpoint. Philosophically he backs it. I'm guessing it's not well implemented, EFF found this, and now Legere is upset because if EFF were on the consumer side, they would not try stir trouble with T-Mobile, because T-Mobile is making gambles taking on the side of the consumer.
- ljk 11y ago
  Reminds me of when Mark Zuckerberg was surprised when fb's version of "the internet" was receiving very negative feedback
lambda 11y ago
I love how he says that it's not throttling, while comparing it to economy mode on a car. Which is, well, literal throttling to give you less performance but better economy. I would not mind them offering the feature if they were honest up front about what it is. It is throttling; it is reducing the bandwidth available for particular downloads, in order to use less or none of your data plan. Now, there are still some net neutrality problems with the fact that certain service providers use none of your data allowance while others do still count against it. But anyhow, why try to sell this as not throttling when that's exactly what it is; throttling, but you get some benefit in that you don't have to pay as much for those throttled streams?
mangeletti 11y ago
IMHO, the CEO is being disingenuous. I apologize in advance for this rant: T-Mobile knows exactly what it's doing. If they had announced an open platform with open specs for implementing low-bandwidth video, and then said "if you have this, we'll use it", the end result would be that everyone could benefit from an innovation of theirs. Instead, they partnered up with the largest media providers to save themselves and those media providers money on bandwidth. He's smart enough to know that favoring companies that "have the technology to do this" really means favoring large corporations, which is bad for the little guys. If this wasn't true, there wouldn't be "50 new companies applying" to take part in some application process to be approved... to be on their special little Internet. By even having an application to be involved, they're creating the framework for control and favoritism right from the start. His creepy "we're just trying to help everyone and make the world a better place" stuff is not fooling anyone. T-Mobile is in it for themselves and themselves only. Keep your corruption away from our Internet and name your service something other than "Internet".
- jshevek 11y ago
  "His creepy "we're just trying to help everyone and make the world a better place" stuff is not fooling anyone." So do you think that his twitter cheering squad are just sock puppets? I think he is actually fooling people - far too many people. And now, because of this scumbag CEO, there are people who previously didn't know of the EFF who are now tweeting their dislike/opposition to the EFF.
  - mangeletti 11y ago
    Ugh :/ That is a disturbing thought.
  - moistgorilla 11y ago
    People are so disenfranchised with their current providers that they will take the "underdogs" word at face value without doing any research to back it up.
  - frik 11y ago
    We see many sock puppets these days. Some companies do their cruel things even on HN. Sure there is a fine line between fanboys and sock puppets, but some are either that starry-eyed, are employees or even get money for their postings.
peteretep 11y ago
John Legere is ... interesting. He used to look like this: http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/if4q5M1spdSM.jpeg http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/if4q5M1spdSM.jpeg And now he looks like this: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0Qvjw-CMAAFn8j.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0Qvjw-CMAAFn8j.jpg Are there many other CEOs who have embraced their corporate branding so seriously?
devy 11y ago
Disclaimer: I had been an AT&T mobile customer for more than a decade and subscribed with Verizon and Sprint each for a few years before jumped to T-Mobile about 2 years ago and happily ever since. If you read through the entire EFF report on BingeOn [1], you will see that there are only two problems EFF had with T-Mobile's BingeOn program: 1. "Throttle" or "Downgrade/optimize" (pick a word depending on your viewpoint for either side) of all HTML5 video streams 2. Opt-in by default Net neutrality debates aside, I love BingeOn since day one and didn't notice much of degradation of video quality when I watch videos with BingOn (I still left it on) All the arguments EFF against BingeOn, T-Mobile can easily tweak their program to easily comply. Regarding #1, I suspect it's more of a technical challenge than an illicit intent [2] (of saving data bandwidth, which of course if the win-win situation T-Mobile wanted). Some like YouTube has proprietary steaming intricacies that T-Mobile have had technical difficulties to selectively "Throttle" or "Downgrade" only content partners so it's easier to just do it for all as hinted by this WSJ article about YouTube's reluctance of signing on BingOn.[3] As far as #2 goes, again, no doubt T-Mobile wanted to save their bandwidth at the same time get credits for it putting a marketing campaign around its practice, but EFF (given the sensitivity about Net neutrality) and YouTube(very opinionated about user experience on video quality) certainly have different viewpoints about it. In the end, as a T-Mobile customer, my heart still sides with John Legere's latest unconventional and controversial un-carrier move because A) I still have a choice to turn BingeOn off (though I won't as I would rather save 2/3 of my data cap to do something else and very gladly and gracefully accept my zero-rated video content allowances on partnered video sites.) B) I am optimistic about T-Mobile to eventually figure out a way to selectively (as opposed to indiscriminately) "optimize" video content on only partnered video sites so that it will be more compliant with net neutrality. There is a technical challenge to overcome after all. C) Despite of profanity and inappropriate wardrobes, I, as an mobile customer, love what John Legere has done for wireless subscribers in the U.S. and the direction he set for the industry. Needless to say, results are self-explanatory. [4] [1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-bingeon-optimization-just-throttling-applies https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles... [2]: http://www.androidcentral.com/bingeon-terrible-purpose-and-john-legere-needs-stop http://www.androidcentral.com/bingeon-terrible-purpose-and-j... [3]: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/11/12/t-mobiles-problem-with-youtube-whats-a-video-and-whats-not/?mod=rss_Technology http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/11/12/t-mobiles-problem-wit... [4]: http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy-john-legeres-strategy-for-taking-new-customers-by-storm http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy-john-...
shmerl 11y ago
He picked the wrong target. It was fun when he was poking AT&T and Verizon who deserved it. But EFF? That's going to backfire. And especially since T-Mobile is indeed violating Net Neutrality.
gcb0 11y ago
i would have continued to be a customer of they said "it's a technology limitation, but the benefits are great and we plan to work on improving the side effects" (even if i know for sure the last part was a lie).
intrasight 11y ago
Neither T-Mobile nor EFF nor net neutrality come out looking good on this one. As others have pointed out in this discussion, net neutrality is a thing for broadband wired Internet where there is rarely competition, not for wireless internet where there is plenty of competition and one way to compete is to offer compelling services. But the T-Mobile CEO is a jerk and that rarely works out well for anyone.
RoboErectus 11y ago
I'm going to guess that the reason he's saying it's not throttling is because that's the explanation he's been given by his engineering team. Or he said "let's optimize video in a way that isn't throttling." He's calling it semantics because of Dunning-Kruger. Because he doesn't really know how any of this works, but his ego is so big Superman couldn't lift it, he inflates his surface understanding to expert level. Tmo should publish a spec that allows any provider to meet their definition of optimized video and therefore qualify for binge on. I'm totally fine with it as long as they don't get to choose who gets unlimited streaming. As it is, and as a current tmo customer, this is eye opening. Tmo had always seemed to be the voice of reason in American wireless. What they did with contracts was a massive step in the right direction. But this makes it look like they don't actually get it. They just happened to accidentally get a few things right.

300 points by tshtf 11y ago

Now that I gave it another thought. Isn't the only way to comply with net neutrality to throttle _all_ video instead of certain video? And isn't that exactly what T-mobile is trying to do here? It still sucks because it is misleading, but I sort of get where they're coming from.

adenadel 11y ago
I'm not a T-mobile customer, but I guess the "BingeOn" feature is supposed to stop the throttling for certain video providers.
- wmf 11y ago
  No, I think it throttles all video. OK, maybe it doesn't throttle video providers who voluntarily throttle themselves, but the result is the same.
  - adenadel 11y ago
    Yeah, I misread. Binge On makes it so that the data from certain providers doesn't count against your data limit, but leads to throttling of all videos.
- tzs 11y ago
  If you have Binge On turned on: all video is throttled, but video from a large number of sources does not count against your data cap. If you have Binge On turned off: video is not throttled, but it all counts against your data cap. You can switch between on and off as often as you want.
deleted 11y ago
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vhold 11y ago
No, because throttling a kind of traffic is also non-neutrality. Imagine cable companies throttling video, phone companies throttling VoIP, etc.

Someone1234 11y ago

We pay the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Consumers, geeks, and the privacy/digital rights inclined. They're doing exactly what donors want them to be doing, including this Binge On thing (which is part of a larger Net Neutrality struggle). I am a T-Mobile customer. And when they first introduced Binge On I was mostly happy (Net Neutrality notwithstanding): seemed like a fair trade, for certain sites you lost video bandwidth but in return received unlimited streaming. However T-Mobile's implementation is bad and worse still they weren't honest about what Binge On does. It is a completely different arrangement between ONLY limiting sites that signed up, and interfering in third parties who did not, and don't even get me started on limiting video file download rates (i.e. not streaming). The CEO is just acting like an idiot. Consumer rights groups, like the EFF, are completely entitled to "stir things up" when large national corporations start acting poorly. If you guys didn't want to be called out, perhaps you could have been more honest to begin with? So as a T-Mobile customer, I am 100% behind EFF on this one. If they started attacking the EFF regularly I'll change networks (e.g. Project Fi), because I value the EFF more than T-Mobile. PS - Amazon's Smile.Amazon.com supports EFF donations, as an aside.

joezydeco 11y ago
@EFF: "T-Mobile's CEO is dying to know who EFF is. Friends, please tweet at @JohnLegere with the hashtag #WeAreEFF to enlighten him." https://twitter.com/EFF/status/685216654398099456 https://twitter.com/EFF/status/685216654398099456
- mattl 11y ago
  https://twitter.com/mattl/status/685224731667087360 https://twitter.com/mattl/status/685224731667087360
  - jshevek 11y ago
    Well done!
epistasis 11y ago
I really like the concept of the EFF, and really like most of their work, but when I was reading their blog I quickly started to feel like they go off half-cocked too often. When I first saw summaries of their report my guess was just that there in turning BingeOn on/off on a single account, or that there were temporary configuration problems on T-Mobile's side. Some people like the idea of supporting an out-there extreme to keep the Overton window shifted to an appropriate place. I can see the logic in it, but I value truth first. T-mobile's CEO's schtick is to act like this, and I don't really appreciate that much either, but I do appreciate T-mobile's small movements to make the cell phone market more fluid by getting rid of contracts, and I also still like BingeOn. It gives me more control over my data than Netflix or Amazon or whomever gives me.

diebir 11y ago

He's not going to be the CEO for much longer. Quite probably, being too smart is detrimental to CEO career, but being obviously dumb in interactions with the media is not tolerated at all. There was once a CEO of Seagate that could not contain himself and said something to the effect that people "buy drives to store porn". He was gone soon there after.

stonogo 11y ago
I think you're vastly overestimating the repercussions here. John Legere has built his reputation on saying crazy shit; this is a drop in the bucket.
- sremani 11y ago
  Along with outspokeness, John Legere has started many things at T-Mobile the rest of the industry adopted. He is not a lose cannon, like people are portraying here.
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    Why not both? He seems like a loose cannon, but one that often hits the mark. Sometimes it takes someone who is a little crazy to go against the bigger players.
Someone1234 11y ago
Historically these types of outbursts when aimed at unpopular entities (e.g. other carriers) have been fairly popular and working well for him/them. Problem is that they misunderstood the sentiment surrounding BingeOn and perhaps the EFF in general. I think he'll survive this one, and hopefully learns from it, but we'll see... He has started to back down on Twitter already (if you look at his tweets from 30 minutes ago).
yuhong 11y ago
I have been thinking about Yishan style CEOs for a while now, as well as things like https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/679947535591473156 https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/679947535591473156

jackmoore 11y ago

Just wanted to remind folks that you can support the EFF through AmazonSmile.

jkaunisv1 11y ago
Never heard of AmazonSmile. Is it just regular Amazon but they donate a % to charity? Does it offer only a subset of their products? I'm looking for the catch but I can't see it.
- URSpider94 11y ago
  It's just an overlay on Amazon.com that lets you designate a charity to receive a small percentage of your purchases as a donation. If you can buy it on Amazon, you can buy it on smile.amazon -- because they are the same site.
- fred256 11y ago
  The catch is that you have to remember to type smile.amazon.com.

williesleg 11y ago

George Soros is a moron.

neumino 11y ago

He thought he could pick on EFF like he does on other carriers. That was his worst move so far.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
I'm more likely to stop contributing to the EFF than paying T-Mobile for cellular service, in the grand scheme of things.
- geofft 11y ago
  Is their service that good? As a current T-Mobile US customer, it looks like I can get an equivalent plan from Sprint for approximately the same cost, mostly thanks to T-Mobile's aggressive competition.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I've had friends who couldn't get their Sprint service to work on major streets in downtown Chicago, but my T-Mobile service worked on the Playa at Burning Man, not to mention that I get free edge data in 140 countries: "Only from T-Mobile, our Simple Choice Plan makes it simple for you to stay in touch while you explore the world. Now get unlimited data and texting in 95% of the places you travel most—140+ countries and destinations around the globe. Oh, and calls? They’re just 20 cents a minute." There's a reason I've used them for 14 years.
    - geofft 11y ago
      Hrm, anecdotally I've had real trouble with international data roaming in places I'd have expected to be decently covered with cell service, like cafes in Leith. It's a nice bonus when it works, but since it's not even reliable enough for emergencies, it's not worth any carrier loyalty. I'm curious if it worked for you. Isn't Commnet trying to provide actual cell service at Burning Man? I feel like if you have a company specifically trying to make cell service work in the middle of the desert, with no metal buildings anywhere, it's totally unsurprising that it works.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

DanBC 11y ago

> it includes a proprietary technology and what the technology does is not only detect the video stream, but select the appropriate bitrate to optimize to the mobile device, This sounds okay if you don't think about it too much. I've seen what a piss-poor job T-Mobile does of image optimising, and so I feel sorry for the people stuck on the other end of a T-Mobile connection having their videos fiddled with. It's not just image quality that suffers, everything about it is stupid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484081

voltagex_ 11y ago
It's only going to be really scary when CPU time becomes cheap enough to re-encode videos on the fly (are we there already?). I can see some nefarious uses of watermarking, or on the extreme end, OpenCV and motion tracking for some enhanced product placement.
- AjithAntony 11y ago
  Lots of mobile carriers already do this with Bytemobile (recently acquired by Citrix) https://www.citrix.com/products/bytemobile-adaptive-traffic-management/overview.html https://www.citrix.com/products/bytemobile-adaptive-traffic-...

dogma1138 11y ago

Is this guy an alumni of the John McAfee school of management? Never heard of him before but now I've watched some of his other stuff on YouTube some of it is pure gold....

denova 11y ago

T-Mobile customers, feel free to write to them at: T-Mobile Customer Relations P.O. Box 37380 Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380 I couldn't find an email address.

jrcii 11y ago

I'm not sure how Steve Buscemi got to be CEO of T-Mobile but he's making a big mistake picking a fight with the EFF.

mxxx 11y ago

Gee that video really made me cringe. Hey, maybe if we dress the CEO in a hoodie, put him in front of an electric guitar with his batman figurines and make him say edgy things like "bullshit" a couple of times, the kids will relate to him! Cowabunga dudes!

cheald 11y ago
This isn't a new tack. It's pretty consistent with Legere's whole schtick.
- ellisv 11y ago
  and it even seems to be working: http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/t-mobile-added-another-8-3-million-customers-in-2015/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/t-mobile-added-anoth...
lavezzi 11y ago
I think it's pretty genuine on his part. I was walking through Central Park back in November and some dude dressed in top to toe Pink, sporting T-Mobile logos galore ran past me. It was Legere.

silveira 11y ago

Ok, I'm making a donation to EFF.

etjossem 11y ago

John Legere is the CEO of a multinational telecommunications company. Of course he knows what the EFF is. At first, he was just trying to explain BingeOn to T-Mobile customers in a favorable way - "optimization for mobile devices to stretch the data available on your plan." And that's exactly what an informed consumer should expect him to say. You're not going to hear the words "reduced quality by default" or "sweetheart deals with content providers" come from the mouth of a man with fiduciary duty to T-Mobile. But trying to discredit the EFF will blow up in his face. If auto company execs feigned ignorance about Consumer Reports and Kelley Blue Book, we'd laugh at them. It's a transparent way to avoid answering the questions these consumer watchdog groups raise.

frik 11y ago
> informed consumer Even in this HN thread there are several persons who either work for T-Mobile or are starry-eyed.

karcass 11y ago

He's the Trump of Telecom

bradleyankrom 11y ago
I don't think that's the kind of personality I want speaking for a company I'm entrusting with my communications data. Save the schtick for a lifestyle brand. The EFF isn't TMO's competition, there's no reason for a profanity-laced response from the goddamn CEO of a global telecom (particularly a telecom that already attracts attention from antitrust watchdogs).

fastball 11y ago

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, Binge On is obviously targeted at customers who have limited data plans and seem likely to go over their cap if they watch video normally. Many (most?) streaming sites don't provide fine-grained control over what quality is delivered to your device. Seems like a lot still just differentiate between "normal" and "HD". So it seems to me like T-Mobile is trying to help their limited customers out by lowering the bandwidth on videos so that data is used up a slower rate. I personally have an unlimited data plan, so I can't even provide anecdotal evidence, but if I had a limited plan, I think I would appreciate that. Once bitrate management is in place, throttling doesn't seem like a big deal. As long as I am still being delivered data at a rate > the rate at which I am consuming the video (i.e. as long as there is no buffering) then there isn't really a problem, right? If you disagree with T-Mobile's decision to choose what bitrate is good for you, then yeah, I understand, this sucks. If, on the other hand, you are OK with this, then I don't really think there is an issue. What I think would be the best option would be for T-Mobile to have some sort of control panel that customers could use to pick a bitrate cap for all videos that they watch on their mobile plan. Seems like that could please both parties if they started with a fairly restrictive default setting but users could change it.

shkkmo 11y ago
The problem is that Binge On is not just 'choosing what bitrate is good for you' but is also throttling all video data, including direct downloads. > The EFF post found that T-Mobile isn’t actually “optimizing” any video traffic for Binge On users, it’s merely throttling it. Not all video players on all websites have the capability to down-res a video from, for example, 1080p to 480p. That means some videos on some websites using some players must be watched at their original resolution (due to T-Mobile’s guidelines, these will inherently not be Binge On services). Even though this hypothetical 1080p video would count against both a Binge On customer’s data cap and a non Binge On customer’s data cap, one without Binge On will stream the 1080p video at a speed as fast as the network can go; one with Binge On will stream it at 1.5 Mbps, a speed that makes it arguably un-streamable. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/t-mobiles-binge-on-indiscriminately-throttles-all-video-content http://motherboard.vice.com/read/t-mobiles-binge-on-indiscri... I've been a fan of John Legere's antics and efforts to push for innovation in the US carrier industry. However this sort of attack on the EFF and blatant lying/misinformation about throttling is a shyster move.

placeybordeaux 11y ago

Off topic: Who the hell edited this video? There are an insane amount of cuts.

ibejoeb 11y ago
T-mobile certainly adopted the youtube-style vlog jump cut scheme. It's not for everyone, but it has certainly been on-trend for a long while now. He's also tweeting selfie video responses; I think it's good that he's participating in the culture to which he caters. More discussion: https://www.quora.com/Internet-Culture/Why-do-popular-YouTube-vlogs-purposely-overuse-jump-cuts https://www.quora.com/Internet-Culture/Why-do-popular-YouTub...

mahouse 11y ago

The EFF? A liberal lobby.

jshevek 11y ago
Not at all. The EFF cares about free speech. Is that a liberal position? Too many liberals that I know do not care enough about free speech. The EFF cares about privacy. Is that a liberal issue? I know people all across the political spectrum who care about privacy.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  Not sure if you're an American or not, but the guy you're replying to probably is. In the US, "liberal" has a different meaning than it does elsewhere. Privacy, freedom of speech, and personal liberties in general are core tenets of American liberalism.

kin 11y ago

IMO he's upset because he feels like T-Mobile is very much on the side of the customers. As a T-Mobile customer I certainly feel that way. Free unlimited streaming for music and video? Unlimited streaming on all content for the holidays? He talks about how the industry is corrupt and T-Mobile started the Jump! program which is awesome. They are also huge in the contract-free movement. I'm also pretty sure he's unaware of how Binge On works from a technical standpoint. Philosophically he backs it. I'm guessing it's not well implemented, EFF found this, and now Legere is upset because if EFF were on the consumer side, they would not try stir trouble with T-Mobile, because T-Mobile is making gambles taking on the side of the consumer.

ljk 11y ago
Reminds me of when Mark Zuckerberg was surprised when fb's version of "the internet" was receiving very negative feedback

lambda 11y ago

I love how he says that it's not throttling, while comparing it to economy mode on a car. Which is, well, literal throttling to give you less performance but better economy. I would not mind them offering the feature if they were honest up front about what it is. It is throttling; it is reducing the bandwidth available for particular downloads, in order to use less or none of your data plan. Now, there are still some net neutrality problems with the fact that certain service providers use none of your data allowance while others do still count against it. But anyhow, why try to sell this as not throttling when that's exactly what it is; throttling, but you get some benefit in that you don't have to pay as much for those throttled streams?

mangeletti 11y ago

IMHO, the CEO is being disingenuous. I apologize in advance for this rant: T-Mobile knows exactly what it's doing. If they had announced an open platform with open specs for implementing low-bandwidth video, and then said "if you have this, we'll use it", the end result would be that everyone could benefit from an innovation of theirs. Instead, they partnered up with the largest media providers to save themselves and those media providers money on bandwidth. He's smart enough to know that favoring companies that "have the technology to do this" really means favoring large corporations, which is bad for the little guys. If this wasn't true, there wouldn't be "50 new companies applying" to take part in some application process to be approved... to be on their special little Internet. By even having an application to be involved, they're creating the framework for control and favoritism right from the start. His creepy "we're just trying to help everyone and make the world a better place" stuff is not fooling anyone. T-Mobile is in it for themselves and themselves only. Keep your corruption away from our Internet and name your service something other than "Internet".

jshevek 11y ago
"His creepy "we're just trying to help everyone and make the world a better place" stuff is not fooling anyone." So do you think that his twitter cheering squad are just sock puppets? I think he is actually fooling people - far too many people. And now, because of this scumbag CEO, there are people who previously didn't know of the EFF who are now tweeting their dislike/opposition to the EFF.
- mangeletti 11y ago
  Ugh :/ That is a disturbing thought.
- moistgorilla 11y ago
  People are so disenfranchised with their current providers that they will take the "underdogs" word at face value without doing any research to back it up.
- frik 11y ago
  We see many sock puppets these days. Some companies do their cruel things even on HN. Sure there is a fine line between fanboys and sock puppets, but some are either that starry-eyed, are employees or even get money for their postings.

peteretep 11y ago

John Legere is ... interesting. He used to look like this: http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/if4q5M1spdSM.jpeg http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/if4q5M1spdSM.jpeg And now he looks like this: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0Qvjw-CMAAFn8j.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0Qvjw-CMAAFn8j.jpg Are there many other CEOs who have embraced their corporate branding so seriously?

devy 11y ago

Disclaimer: I had been an AT&T mobile customer for more than a decade and subscribed with Verizon and Sprint each for a few years before jumped to T-Mobile about 2 years ago and happily ever since. If you read through the entire EFF report on BingeOn [1], you will see that there are only two problems EFF had with T-Mobile's BingeOn program: 1. "Throttle" or "Downgrade/optimize" (pick a word depending on your viewpoint for either side) of all HTML5 video streams 2. Opt-in by default Net neutrality debates aside, I love BingeOn since day one and didn't notice much of degradation of video quality when I watch videos with BingOn (I still left it on) All the arguments EFF against BingeOn, T-Mobile can easily tweak their program to easily comply. Regarding #1, I suspect it's more of a technical challenge than an illicit intent [2] (of saving data bandwidth, which of course if the win-win situation T-Mobile wanted). Some like YouTube has proprietary steaming intricacies that T-Mobile have had technical difficulties to selectively "Throttle" or "Downgrade" only content partners so it's easier to just do it for all as hinted by this WSJ article about YouTube's reluctance of signing on BingOn.[3] As far as #2 goes, again, no doubt T-Mobile wanted to save their bandwidth at the same time get credits for it putting a marketing campaign around its practice, but EFF (given the sensitivity about Net neutrality) and YouTube(very opinionated about user experience on video quality) certainly have different viewpoints about it. In the end, as a T-Mobile customer, my heart still sides with John Legere's latest unconventional and controversial un-carrier move because A) I still have a choice to turn BingeOn off (though I won't as I would rather save 2/3 of my data cap to do something else and very gladly and gracefully accept my zero-rated video content allowances on partnered video sites.) B) I am optimistic about T-Mobile to eventually figure out a way to selectively (as opposed to indiscriminately) "optimize" video content on only partnered video sites so that it will be more compliant with net neutrality. There is a technical challenge to overcome after all. C) Despite of profanity and inappropriate wardrobes, I, as an mobile customer, love what John Legere has done for wireless subscribers in the U.S. and the direction he set for the industry. Needless to say, results are self-explanatory. [4] [1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-bingeon-optimization-just-throttling-applies https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles... [2]: http://www.androidcentral.com/bingeon-terrible-purpose-and-john-legere-needs-stop http://www.androidcentral.com/bingeon-terrible-purpose-and-j... [3]: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/11/12/t-mobiles-problem-with-youtube-whats-a-video-and-whats-not/?mod=rss_Technology http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/11/12/t-mobiles-problem-wit... [4]: http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy-john-legeres-strategy-for-taking-new-customers-by-storm http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy-john-...

shmerl 11y ago

He picked the wrong target. It was fun when he was poking AT&T and Verizon who deserved it. But EFF? That's going to backfire. And especially since T-Mobile is indeed violating Net Neutrality.

gcb0 11y ago

i would have continued to be a customer of they said "it's a technology limitation, but the benefits are great and we plan to work on improving the side effects" (even if i know for sure the last part was a lie).

intrasight 11y ago

Neither T-Mobile nor EFF nor net neutrality come out looking good on this one. As others have pointed out in this discussion, net neutrality is a thing for broadband wired Internet where there is rarely competition, not for wireless internet where there is plenty of competition and one way to compete is to offer compelling services. But the T-Mobile CEO is a jerk and that rarely works out well for anyone.

RoboErectus 11y ago

I'm going to guess that the reason he's saying it's not throttling is because that's the explanation he's been given by his engineering team. Or he said "let's optimize video in a way that isn't throttling." He's calling it semantics because of Dunning-Kruger. Because he doesn't really know how any of this works, but his ego is so big Superman couldn't lift it, he inflates his surface understanding to expert level. Tmo should publish a spec that allows any provider to meet their definition of optimized video and therefore qualify for binge on. I'm totally fine with it as long as they don't get to choose who gets unlimited streaming. As it is, and as a current tmo customer, this is eye opening. Tmo had always seemed to be the voice of reason in American wireless. What they did with contracts was a massive step in the right direction. But this makes it look like they don't actually get it. They just happened to accidentally get a few things right.