T-Mobile Expands 'Music Freedom' to Include Google Play Music, Xbox Music, Others

This should make a lot of T-Mobile customers very happy: the company’s “Music Freedom” program has expanded to include services like Google Play Music, Xbox Music, Soundcloud, and more. That means that, on qualifying plans, streaming from these services won’t use up any of your data.

The program originally included some of the “top” providers, such as Pandora, Spotify and Slacker. Inclusion of more plans will undoubtedly satisfy T-Mobile customers who subscribe to those services.

Of course, if you’re paying for the $80 unlimited plan, your data is unlimited anyway, so none of this should really matter to you. But those on the lower-tier plans with data caps will find themselves with a lot more data now that most popular music streaming services are covered by Music Freedom.

While it’s tough to view Music Freedom as a bad thing, especially when looking toward other wireless companies; most of the competitors to T-Mobile don’t even offer an unlimited data plan, much less unlimited access to streaming music. But TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez brings up an interesting point about the Net Neutrality ramifications of Music Freedom and the damage that could be done if we all give it a pass.

It’s a worthwhile argument to make. The point of Net Neutrality is to keep the Internet open and the playing field level. Broadband providers should not be picking winners and losers. Yet, with Music Freedom, T-Mobile is doing just that. The company doesn’t support every music service out there, so the bigger companies are benefiting from being included in the program, while smaller upstarts are immediately put at a disadvantage because their services eat precious data.

If you have a choice between a service that uses up your data and one that doesn’t, which would you choose? The latter, most likely.

We’ll be sure to keep you up to speed on any new Music Freedom partners T-Mobile adds.