T-Mobile CEO John Legere has stirred up controversy over detractors of the company’s new streaming service, Binge On, by insulting internet rights group EFF for their belief that the new service mistreats customers.
According to CNET, T-Mobile’s Bing on Service allows users to stream an unlimited amount of video from certain services to their phones without it affecting their monthly data caps.
While Legere and T-Mobile see this service as a move that will benefit their customers, EFF, an internet rights group, has accused T-Mobile of throttling all video traffic to rate of 1.5 megabits per second, even for customers not subscribed to the Binge On service.
EFF believes this can result in a power user experience, echoing YouTube’s similar accusation. For this reason, YouTube has declined to participate in T-Mobile’s Stream On service.
Legere responded to the accusations via a video posted on Twitter.
“What Binge On does, it includes a proprietary technology and what the technology does is not only detect the video stream but select the appropriate bit rate to optimize to the video, the mobile device,” he said. “That’s part A of my answer. Part B of my answer is, who the f— are you, anyway, EFF? Why are you stirring up such trouble, and who pays you?”
As a result, at least one small video company decided to withdraw its participation in Binge On.
On Monday, Legere revealed an open letter to consumers, during the course of which he attempts to apologize for his comment.
“Look, by now you know that 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,” he wrote. “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.”
Despite the controversy and Legere’s apology, T-Mobile has yet to change its Binge On data policy.