T-Mobile Stops Counting Netflix, HBO, Hulu, And Other Video Streams Against Your Data Usage

Watching Netflix on your phone is a great way to blast through some spare time — but it’s also a great way to blast through your monthly allotment of data in no time flat.

T-Mobile is using this as a competitive advantage. From this Sunday on, T-Mobile will no longer count Netflix (and a few other video services) against your data plan.

T-Mobile calls the new feature “Binge On”, playing on the fact that people often refer to blasting through a zillion episodes of something in one sitting as “binge watching”.

One caveat: streams on “binge on” will drop down to non-HD res of 480p, a considerably lower quality than the crazy high-def streams that most people are accustomed to getting. That won’t look too terrible on most palm-sized phone displays — but you’ll probably notice the difference.

Here’s the list of sites that no longer hit your data plan:

• Netflix
• Hulu
• Showtime
• Starz
• Crackle
• Encore
• ESPN
• Fox Sports
• Fox Sports GO
• HBO Now
• HBO GO
• MLB
• Movieplex
• NBC Sports
• Sling TV
• Slingbox
• T-Mobile TV
• Univision Deportes
• Ustream
• Vessel
• Vevo
• VUDU

It’ll be curious to see how — or if — other carriers respond to this. T-Mobile made a similar move with music services like Spotify/Pandora/etc. back in June of last year, and no other carrier followed suit.

Music services don’t use that much data, though — but video streaming sites? Thats a whole different story. I’d imagine this move will make a considerably bigger impact.

But wait: what about YouTube? That seems like quite the omission.