YouTube tunes into T-Mobile's Binge On at last - CNET

T-Mobile and YouTube have made up.

Early on, the world's largest video site had expressed its displeasure at T-Mobile's Binge On program, which compresses video, at some cost to quality, to allow subscribers to watch unlimited content on their phones and tablets. YouTube wasn't part of the program, yet still saw its video quality get dinged.

"Reducing data charges can be good for users, but it doesn't justify throttling all video services, especially without explicit user consent," a YouTube spokesman told The Wall Street Joual (paywall) in January.

But that's water under the bridge now that T-Mobile has tweaked the program. YouTube and eight other video services have joined Binge On, the Bellevue, Washington, carrier said Thursday. The other partners are Baeble Music, Discovery Go, ESNE TV, FilmOn.TV, Fox Business, Google Play Movies, KlowdTV and Red Bull TV. That brings the total to 52.

The addition of YouTube fills the biggest gap in Binge On's lineup. While the program launched in November with heavy hitters such as Netflix and ESPN, many of the online eyeballs are still directed to Google's massive video service. The move comes as you and everyone else increasingly spend time watching videos on your phone or tablet, which eats up most of your data allotment. T-Mobile says customers are watching twice as many hours of video a day with its program.