News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Applies Indiscriminately.

Re:T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Appl... by Klathmon on Monday January 04, 2016 @12:54PM (#10837106)
I have so many problems with T-Mobile's Binge On and this is only making it so much worse.

So now it's:

* only providers they deem important enough to give the service to can use it (everyone else just gets their requests ignored)

* it MUST be unencrypted to get the no-data-usage benefits (I might be wrong on this one, i can't find where i read this)

* it needs to be done through a "blessed" app or it's not covered (For example, soundcloud is covered, but soundcloud through a browser is not...)

* video in the service needs to be heavily compressed (with no way of showing the user that this is happening or who is doing it or why it's happening)

* Now it comes out that video not even covered by the service must be heavily compressed... Again with no notification to the end users that this is happening, leaving them to point the blame at the site itself (netflix, youtube, etc...) since all other sites work fine.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Appl... by JoshTriplett on Monday January 04, 2016 @12:59PM (#10837143)
> * it MUST be unencrypted to get the no-data-usage benefits

I haven't seen that one mentioned anywhere. Clearly they only recognize and throttle video from other servers when unencrypted (since they don't throttle other downloads from the same servers), but for services signed up with T-Mobile's "Binge On", it seems easy enough to ignore the bandwidth usage based on server IP, rather than sniffing file types. Do they really recognize the servers they partner with based on traffic sniffing rather than IP?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Appl... by Klathmon on Monday January 04, 2016 @01:02PM (#10837164)
I thought all of the music apps that joined their program earlier had that imposed on them, however I can't seem to find where i read that so i might be wrong there.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Appl... by ianlevesque on Monday January 04, 2016 @07:48PM (#10840101)
It's IP range or http URL pattern matching, we had to provide this information when we joined the music program. Interestingly they also try to exclude the related ad traffic, if any, but that's challenging due to how undocumented and varied ad networks are.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Appl... by piffey on Monday January 04, 2016 @05:38PM (#10839283)
During their uncarrier launch event their CTO mentioned that they share certificates with partner services so they can inspect and do their magic on HTTPS traffic. I can't actually look up the video archive right now due to traveling, but I specifically remember it during the Q&A session at the end because I was curious if there was some MITM action going on.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Appl... by hammock on Monday January 04, 2016 @01:50PM (#10837567)
>* Now it comes out that video not even covered by the service must be heavily compressed...

Actually if you read the article, it says there is no compression happening at all. Just throttling.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Appl... by Klathmon on Monday January 04, 2016 @01:52PM (#10837580)
I guess i should have worded that differently.

It must be heavily compressed to play-back without stopping.

So unless the server has the ability to change the bitrate on the fly, the video won't stream right at all.

[ Parent | on HN ]