Binge On! - get your umbrellas out, stuff's hitting the fan.

Fri Jan 8 17:21:35 UTC 2016

On one hand I want to give Legere some credit for addressing the publicity
himself. On the other hand, he sounds like a complete fool doing it. I wish
I would've been on Periscope at the time.

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Ray Orsini – CEO
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-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of Hugo Slabbert
Sent: Friday, January 8, 2016 12:12 PM
To: Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Binge On! - get your umbrellas out, stuff's hitting the fan.

On Thu 2016-Jan-07 22:43:20 -0500, Valdis Kletnieks
<Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu> wrote:

>So we went round and round back in November regarding Binge On! and
>whether it was net neutrality. So here's some closure to that...
>
>The EFF did some testing and discovered that what T-Mobile is actually
>doing doesn't match what they said it was...
>
>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-bingeon-op
>timization-just-throttling-applies
>
>Apparently, John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, doesn't know who the EFF is,
>or why they're giving him a hard time.
>
>"Part B of my answer is, who the fuck are you, anyway, EFF?" Legere
>said. "Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?"
>
>http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/7/10733298/john-legere-binge-on-lie
>
>/me makes popcorn....

And I'm sorry, but this line from Legere had me raging at my screen:

"There are people out there saying we’re “throttling.” They’re playing
semantics! Binge On does NOT permanently slow down data nor remove customer
control. Here’s the thing, mobile customers don’t always want or need giant
heavy data files. So we created adaptive video technology to optimize for
mobile screens and stream at a bitrate designed to stretch your data (pssst,
Google, that's a GOOD thing)."[1]

...so...you're "optimizing" the bitrate of video traffic for mobile by
lowering it to 1.5 mbps, but don't worry: it's not "throttling". And you're
accusing the "other guys" of playing semantics?  Beside pure marketing
doublespeak, I don't even know what actual logic he's using here.
Apparently it's only "throttling" if it *permanently* slows down traffic,
and BingeOn somehow doesn't do that (besides what the EFF is putting
forward)?  Is it because even though it's enabled by default, there is still
an "off" switch, and therefore user choice is maintained (though probalby
not obvious to most consumers)?

Listen: I have no issue with doing shaping or traffic prioritization or
whatever as your customer asks for it; we offer that as an option to
customers to get the most out of their connections and I'm sure many of you
do as well.  But:

1)  Those are done at the request of the customer, not opt-out.
2)  Be honest about what you're doing.

T-Mobile seems to be trying to spin this as if they have some magical
technology that will re-encode streaming video on the fly to 480p, when
really they're just ID-ing video and rate-limiting it (when it comes to
video that doesn't match their technical requirements doc and doesn't do ABR
down to 480p on the sending side).  Fine: just getting decent accuracy on
various edge cases of identifying video traffic isn't trivial, so kudos, but
don't blow smoke about it.  If Legere has some info about how this truly at
a technical level is not just rate limiting, then show us that info.  Yes:
I've read the "Content Provider Technical Requirements" doc[2] that talks
about adaptive bitrate tech on the sending side:

"The content provider will provide video over T‐Mobile’s network using
adaptive bit rate technology in which the server sending streaming video
content will automatically adapt video resolution of the stream based on the
capabilities of the data connection or as otherwise indicated by the
T‐Mobile network."

But, that's for the content folks that are participating in the BingeOn
setup for zero-rating.  The EFF's data indicates that if you're just a
random video stream (or video media type file), you get rate limited.

With all of this said, I appreciate the challenge of getting something like
this implemented at scale without going opt-out.  T-Mo is going for a PR win
as well as, let's be honest, reducing network utilization by reducing the
bitrate of video crossing the network, but it's *highly* unlikely that
you're going to get enough critical mass in an opt-in effort to pull it off.
To T-Mo's credit, they're making the opt-out quite simple, but let's be
clear that this is not a net neutral move if we go by the commonly accepted
definitions:

"The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to
treat all content, sites, and platforms equally."[3]

"Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net
equality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments
should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or
charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type
of attached equipment, or mode of communication."[4]

The majority of the "fight" to date has been about the source and origin of
the traffic, so the discussion often leans that direction, but there is no
question that BingeOn works to identify a specific application or type of
content (video) and then treats it differently from other traffic.

"So why are special interest groups -- and even Google! -- offended by this?
Why are they trying to characterize this as a bad thing?"

Because you're drawing a box within which people have to play, which puts
shackles on innovation.  For traffic destined for a BingeOn enabled T-Mo
customer (which is everyone by default unless they opt out), content
providers can choose to:

1.  Meet the technical requirements (possibly at real cost to them to adapt
their infrastructure) and do adaptive bitrate streaming, and get capped at
480p but be zero-rated.
2.  Do nothing, don't get zero-rated, and get rate-limited to 1.5 mbps.

Part of the concern from the net neut crowd is that creating little boxes
like this hampers innovation and the development of novel new applications.
BingeOn in and of itself may not directly curtail innovation, but the
concern is that everyone can create their own little box with which content
providers need to cooperate/interoperate.  Already in the BingeOn technical
requirements doc, there is reference to basically a business relationship
(e.g. "To ensure a good customer experience, any changes to a content
provider’s streaming formats and/or mechanisms that could impact T‐Mobile’s
ability to include the provider’s content in the offering must be
communicated to T‐Mobile in advance").  Do we really want a situation where
content providers need to establish direct relationships with any edge
provider that runs a similar setup to BingeOn in order to ensure their
traffic doesn't get squashed or degraded?

My gut says that most edge operators wouldn't have an issue with the
practice of traffic prioritization or rate limiting as requested by
customers (e.g. prioritize my VoIP traffic; cap offsite backup or
replication traffic).  But those are explicit customer-initiated requests.
I think it is legitimate to express concern when that type of traffic
classification and differential treatment is applied en masse.  T-Mo (or at
least Legere) are pandering to "the little guy" and dismissing legitimate
reports as "bullshit" in a bunch of handwaving and PR.  Let's have an honest
conversation about this, including who all stand to benefit and where there
is legitimate harm or cause for concern.

--
Hugo

hugo at slabnet.com: email, xmpp/jabber
PGP fingerprint (B178313E):
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(also on Signal)

[1]https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/binge-on-update-blog.htm
[2]http://www.t-mobile.com/content/dam/tmo/en-g/pdf/BingeOn-Video-Technical-Criteria-November-2015.pdf
[3]http://www.timwu.org/network_neutrality.html
[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality