T-Mobile’s Binge On service has been met with a bit of skepticism and has had a few issues. One of which being the fact that T-Mobile is “optimizing” all video data on their network – not just those apps that are in their Binge On service. Essentially what Binge One does, is it downgrades the stream to about 480p or DVD quality to play on your smartphone, it also doesn’t count against your data cap. So you can watch all the TV shows and movies you want on Netflix and Hulu, and not count against your data. Which could lead to more cord cutters, and cable companies losing customers and thus revenue.
There are plenty of video services already out there, to keep many away from needing to use a cable company for TV. But with Binge On, this could drive even more people away from cable or satellite TV, simply because users can watch video on their phone and not hit their data cap, or risk getting charged overages. But BingeOn isn’t the only thing that is making T-Mobile compete with cable companies. Cable companies also provide internet for the home, and often times now, mobile internet is even faster than ISP’s speeds are. Meaning that T-Mobile and other wireless carriers will be competing with cable companies in the very near future. Not just in speeds and coverage, but also in video.
Unlike the other larger carriers in the US – AT&T and Verizon – T-Mobile only does wireless. While AT&T and Verizon do home internet, cable and even home phone. However if this momentum from T-Mobile continues, that may change in the near future. Whether T-Mobile brings more competition to the wireline industry, or they are bought and merged with someone like Dish or Comcast – both of which have shown interest in buying the magenta carrier. Competition is always good for the customer, and seeing cable companies and wireless carriers compete for the same customer, could get very interesting. Especially for AT&T who just picked up DirecTV and gained a boat load of extra customers, which AT&T is now attempting to convert to wireless customers as well.