Video startup quits T-Mobile’s Binge On over network neutrality concern

T-Mobile continued to face criticism of its online video zero-rating and throttling program with one small video company saying it would quit Binge On.

Slidefuse, maker of 4Stream.TV, was spurred to action in part by T-Mobile CEO John Legere insulting the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "In light of recent events and of comments made by your CEO, John Legere, we have decided to halt our participation in Binge On and disable our traffic shaping rules for the time being," Slidefuse told T-Mobile. Implementing "traffic shaping rules" apparently means that 4Stream.TV would send only 480p streams to the T-Mobile network. But since T-Mobile can recognize video from most sources and throttle it anyway, video providers can't prevent throttling simply by pulling out of the program. Consumers can disable Binge On in order to watch video without the quality being downgraded. Downgraded video uses less data, helping customers stay under their high-speed data caps. 4Stream.TV wasn't listed among the 38 providers participating in Binge On, but there appears to be a good reason for that: 4Stream.TV was still working with T-Mobile to meet its technical requirements.