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Comment by froh42 | Hacker News Reader

This is so strange. "un-carrier". T-Mobile is a brand of the Deutsche Telekom, the former monopoly and state-owned carrier in Germany.

It can't get more "old inflexible heavy carrier"-y than that. Bandwidth caps. Trying to push Netflix and Google Video out of the network for promoting their on in-house service (net neutrality? Telekom hates it.)

They have problems on the American market, lost a lot of money there, so they try hard to create a "different" image.

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T-Mobile US operates independently of Deutsche Telekom, almost like a totally different company that happens to have the same brand name. Being mostly independent, TMUS have actually dropped a lot of the "heavy carrier" aspects. For instance:

> Bandwidth caps. Trying to push Netflix and Google Video out of the network for promoting their on in-house service

T-Mobile US actually gives you "free" low-quality Netflix and YouTube video streaming, without counting that against a subscribers data limit. http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/binge-on-streaming-video.html

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T-Mobile US isn't the only example of this. "Virgin Mobile USA" is just a brand name slapped on prepaid Sprint phones. Besides licensing the brand, there has been no affiliation between Virgin Group UK and Sprint "Virgin Mobile USA" for many years now.

"Free" here means very low quality streams. This is how T-Mobile is trying to create a bandwidth slow lane without violating the FCCs rules. This is "free" in the same sort of backhanded, conniving way that Facebook's "Free Basics" was free. Meaning, it's full of deceit and actually screwing people over.

Please explain how a system that saves the average user a ton of bandwidth quota, reduces network congestion, and is trivial to opt out of, is "actually screwing people over". I'm very pleased with their Netflix policy, because it means I don't have to bother with shitty hotel DSL for Netflix while I'm traveling.

Because those services which TMobile has greenlit for free bandwidth now have a large competitive advantage over anyone else. Why would a user pay for, for instance, Seeso (a content streaming service) when they'd have to then pay even more for the data to stream it when they could just keep Netflix.

It's nice getting the free data, but this is shoehorning in the 'nice' parts of breaking net neutrality before the other shoe drops.

As long as any video provider can sign up to the program without paying protection money (which, so far as I know, right now they can) I don't see the problem. Sure, it gives Netflix an advantage, but only over providers that haven't bothered to sign up to the scheme for some reason.

If the carrier keeps it a free for all service to sign up as a general congestion incentive, like utility rebates to use more energy efficient light bulbs, then I can see it as a net positive.

Except that it's the opposite of a congestion incentive... it's unmetering so people can use high-bandwidth using services. And if you're offering that any service can sign up to not be metered, then why even meter bandwidth at all?

For most people it is good. That is the problem. The first challengers to Net Neutrality were always going to be deals like this that benefit people. Once a precedent is well established we will start seeing the industry making consumer unfriendly changes like moving Facebook or Netflix access to a higher cost plan. This is the drug dealers giving us our first hit for free.

It's optional, and to be honest, even 480p looks good on my retina iPhone display.

I agree that this weaker version of zero-rating is against Net Neutrality tenets.

I was very surprised about a month ago about how incredible customer focused their policies are regarding to travel to a foreign country. Went to US with Vodafone and ramped up 1200€ data costs, sorry, podcast that automatically downloaded. T-mobile on the other hand limits this automatically and only allows you access after specifically requesting it in text messages.

That and one of the highest data bundles (12GB) in the Netherlands, 300 minutes of EU calling etc for ~28€ makes for an incredible good experience.

For me, their different image has succeeded.

T-Mobile USA operates independently of Deutsche Telekom, hence it's "Uncarrier" principles.

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