John Legere apologizes to EFF but continues to defend Binge On

If you’ve been following the T-Mobile Binge On throttling fiasco, or ‘optimizing’ misunderstand if you prefer, then you probably know that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was rather outspoken about the fact that Bring On’s bandwidth limitations apply to all video services and is enabled by default. After dismissing the throttling allegations just last week and breaking out some of his trademark colourful language, T-Mobile CEO John Legere has now issued an open letter to consumers in which he apologizes “for offending EFF and its supporters”.

In the letter, Legere claims that T-Mobile is a supporter of Net Neutrality and reiterates his defence that the option to toggle Binge On off and on is a pro-consumer feature. He seems convinced that reducing the quality of streamed video and saving on data limits, regardless of which companies are in or out of the service, is a good thing for consumers. While customers are likely split on the issue, Legere’s choice of words certainly seemed to get the better of him last week and it’s all turned a bit messy. Here’s the apology:

“I will however apologize for offending EFF and its supporters. Just because we don’t completely agree on all aspects of Binge On doesn’t mean I don’t see how they fight for consumers. We both agree that it is important to protect consumers’ rights and to give consumers value. We have that in common, so more power to them. As I mentioned last week, we look forward to sitting down and talking with the EFF and that is a step we will definitely take. Unfortunately, my color commentary from last week is now drowning out the real value of Binge On – so hopefully this letter will help make that clear again.”

Really though, nothing has changed since Legere’s previous statements. Binge On remains the same and T-Mobile doesn’t seem to mind too much about the complaints as it continues to carve its name in the carrier industry. It’s doubtful that a chat with the EFF is really going to change his mind either, but things might look a little different if the FCC decides to open up an investigation about Net Neutrality.

Are the complaints just too short sighted to see how T-Mobile is continuing to positively shake up the carrier market, or do you think that the network is going a step too far with Binge On?