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T-Mobile Extends Binge On to NBC, Video From Spotify, More

Despite critics' concerns that Binge On violates neutrality principles, customers seem to love the service.

 & Tom Brant Managing Editor

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A little more than two months after T-Mobile added YouTube—the granddaddy of online video—to Binge On, the carrier today broadened its video and audio streaming lineup to include more than 80 sources.

The Binge On expansion includes NBC, Univision, Noggin, Qello Concerts, and more. Music Freedom participants Google Play Music, Spotify, and Radio Disney, and Tidal will also extend their video offerings to Binge On, so you can watch music videos and such on T-Mobile without it counting against your data limits. The caveat is video quality: Binge On typically streams at DVD quality (480p).

T-Mobile has regularly expanded Binge On since it launched six months ago, and uses it as a weapon in the fierce propaganda war it wages with rival US carriers Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. Case in point: "I hope Dumb and Dumber just keep pushing their mobile video schemes, it just gives consumers more and more reason to come to T-Mobile!" T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in a statement.

T-Mobile also included some stats in today's announcement, including that customers have streamed more than 377 million hours of video since Binge On launched. The company claims 93 percent of people it surveyed said they like the idea of having all video optimized to DVD quality so they can watch more using the same amount of high-speed data.

An independent, crowdsourced study earlier this year confirmed customers' enthusiasm for the service. Using an app installed on more than 1,000 T-Mobile phones, 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.

But critics, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, claim that Binge On is a threat to net neutrality. The EFF published a report in January that says T-Mobile throttles all HTML5 video streams to around 1.5Mbps, even when a phone is capable of downloading at higher speeds.

About Our Expert

Tom Brant

Tom Brant

Managing Editor

I’m a managing editor at PCMag.com focused on PC hardware. Reading this during the day? Then you've caught me testing gear and editing reviews of Wi-Fi routers, printers, laptops, and tons of other personal tech. (Reading this at night? Then I’m probably dreaming about all those cool products.) I’ve covered the consumer tech world as an editor, reporter, and analyst since 2015.

I've covered most major consumer tech events, including CES, Computex, Google I/O, and IFA. I've also appeared on CBS News, in USA Today, and at many other outlets to offer analysis on breaking technology news.

Before I joined the tech-journalism ranks, I wrote on topics as diverse as Borneo's rainforests, Middle Eastern airlines, and Big Data's role in presidential elections. A graduate of Middlebury College, I also have a master's degree in journalism and French Studies from New York University.

The Technology I Use

While most people buy a phone or laptop and stick with it for years, I’m lucky enough to use devices based on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows daily as part of my job. As a result, I cycle through lots of tech in addition to my IT-issue work laptop. (Yes, that's a ThinkPad.) Personally, I’ve also owned a lot of tech products both cutting-edge and cringeworthy, from the Nintendo GameCube and the original MacBook to the Palm m105 and the CueCat.

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