T-Mobile has arguably one of the few carriers in the US that’s been trying new things over the past few years, and it’s certainly worked well for them. The network that was once struggling has risen up to be one of the most popular carriers, and while their network cannot match AT&T’s or Verizon’s they’ve gained a devoted following over the past couple of years. Towards the end of last year, T-Mobile introduced a new service for their subscribers dubbed Binge On, a play on the binging that people often do when they find their new favorite series on Netflix or other services. The idea was simple, Binge On would “stretch” your data plan and allow you to do more, with less. How Binge On does this is by “optimizing” whatever video content you stream online to DVD quality, roughly equivalent to the 480p setting in YouTube. Some have called this throttling and at its most extreme an attack on net neutrality. Luckily, it’s not even easier to turn the service on or off.
We’ve already covered one way to turn Binge On off should you wish to, but it appears that short codes are now available. Short codes are codes that can be inputted into your phone’s dialer and activate certain functions on your device or change some settings on your account. As one Reddit user has noted, dialing #266# will turn Binge On, if not on already, and #263# will turn it off. This is particularly useful for those that are on unlimited data and have little reason to stretch their bottomless data buckets, but for those not on unlimited data plans there are some warnings. Turning this off will increase the amount of data you use when not on WiFi watching videos online, and it will also voice the three-months of free unlimited data that T-Mobile has handed out customers.
To recap, #263# will turn Binge On off, #266# will turn it back on and to check whether or not it’s on or off in the first place, just input #264# to check the status of Binge On. T-Mobile’s CEO John Legere has been characteristically bullish about Binge On recently, and it looks like the service is definitely here to stay.