January 2016

Free Basics has proved uniquely controversial in India, where regulators suspended it temporarily in December pending a review of internet pricing rules. Facebook came out fighting, taking out full-page newspaper advertisements featuring a plaintive article from Mark Zuckerberg. He described his pet project as the online equivalent of free public libraries and health clinics. “Who could possibly be against this?” he wrote. Plenty of people, as it turns out. Facebook’s efforts have been assailed by high-minded internet activists and prominent start-up entrepreneurs alike. Technology luminaries such as Nandan Nilekani, founder of outsourcing group Infosys, have also come out against the plan, describing it as a “walled garden” that “goes against the spirit of openness on the internet”.

For much of this Facebook only has itself to blame. The first version of its service offered access to barely a dozen sites and gave confusing guidelines about how others could sign themselves up to participate. A rash of conspiracy theories about the company’s ulterior motives took hold. Some painted Free Basics as a kind of internet land grab that would ultimately give the social network arbitrary power over what millions of internet users could see. Others saw it as a thinly veiled attempt to steal a march on competitors such as Google and Twitter. More serious objections argued it compromised net neutrality, the idea that all parts of the internet should be available to its users on equal terms.

T-Mobile is a company that absolutely supports Net Neutrality and we believe in an open and free Internet. We want to continue to innovate and bring creative new benefits to market for all of our customers. That is who we are. It’s what we do. It will never change. Second, I think it is really important for everyone to understand what Binge On is, why it is such a great option, and how it can bring you – the consumer – value…. IF you want to enjoy its benefits.

I am a vocal, animated and sometimes foul mouthed CEO. I don’t filter myself and you know that no one at T-Mobile filters me either (no, they don’t even try). That means I will sometimes incite a bit of a ‘social media riot’, but I’m not going to apologize for that. I will however apologize for offending EFF and its supporters. Just because we don’t completely agree on all aspects of Binge On doesn’t mean I don’t see how they fight for consumers. We both agree that it is important to protect consumers' rights and to give consumers value. We have that in common, so more power to them. As I mentioned last week, we look forward to sitting down and talking with the EFF and that is a step we will definitely take. Unfortunately, my color commentary from last week is now drowning out the real value of Binge On – so hopefully this letter will help make that clear again.

For now, I hope you will remember one very important thing. T-Mobile is about breaking the mold, eliminating the status quo and finding new and better ways to give consumers what they want. We will keep working to do that, keep improving, and yes I’m sure I’ll keep shooting my mouth off periodically. That comes from my passion, drive and fight to fix an arrogant and broken industry that is dominated by big companies that want to keep the status quo and don’t care enough to engage with the consumer or to even have the public debate (yes, I mean you Comcast, AT&T and Verizon). So no matter the issue, I promise you that I’ll keep listening to customers, keep eliminating pain points and keep fighting hard for wireless consumers, because that’s why I’m here!