While T-Mobile and its bombastic CEO John Legere might be taking some heat over their Binge On unlimited video streaming service, it appears customers love it, even if the video is “throttled,” or “optimized,” down to 480p resolution.
Today, T-Mobile added support for a few streaming services that were notably missing from their selection of nearly 40 existing services. Online video addicts can now also stream Amazon Video, Fox News, Univision NOW, and their favorite wrestling moments for the WWE Network without cutting into their data plans.
As well as announcing the additional streaming services, the Magenta network also took the opportunity to release data on how much streaming video their customers are now consuming under the new program. A new survey by the carrier shows customers are viewing double the amount of online video they did before the introduction of the Binge On program. The carrier say its users have streamed 34 petabytes, (34 million gigabytes), of video data without it counting against their monthly high-speed data allowance since the program debuted.
T-Mobile notes that:
- Customers with limited high-speed data who qualify for free Binge On streaming are watching more than twice as many hours per day from free services than before.
- One major video service, included in the list of services that stream without eating up your data, is seeing a 79% jump in daily viewers.
- Another major video service, not yet included in the Binge On list of free services, is seeing customers watch 33% more hours than before, thanks to Binge On optimization providing up to 3x more video from their data plan
- Since launching Binge On, T-Mobile customers have streamed 34 petabytes for free. That’s 34 million gigabytes – the equivalent of more than 109 million episodes of Game of Thrones at DVD quality. (That’s at 480p resolution, DUH! – Ed.)
T-Mobile CEO John Legere, of course, had something to say about the service. “Binge On is our most disruptive Un-carrier move yet. It has literally changed the way millions of people are watching video – they’re watching more, more than twice as much as before, and most importantly, they’re watching without worrying about bigger bills or surprise overages!” said Legere. “Binge On is the Un-carrier solution to satisfy Americans’ growing appetite for mobile video – and the facts are telling us that customers love it!”
Binge On is available to customers with plans that include 3GB of high speed data or more per month, and is an “opt-out” program, meaning customers need to manually turn the service off if they don’t want their viewing data compressed by the service.
