• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 11, 2015

No one worries about binge-watching on traditional TV.  You pay the same price whether you watch one “Walking Dead” or 30 episodes of the AMC drama on a specific day.

Not so for many mobile telecommunications services, but  T-Mobile says it will change this in a deal with digital OTT service Sling TV that provides unlimited streaming video with no “data cap.” The offer is appropriately called “Binge On.”

Sling TV is the $20 a month digital OTT service from Dish Network, which offers more than 20 channels including multiple ESPN networks.

John Legere, president/chief executive officer of T-Mobile, says now consumers won’t have to worry about burning up their 4G LTE data.

Media consumers shouldn’t have to worry about this stuff to begin with; they haven’t with traditional TV linear networks. But change — and ease of use --  in the mobile/digital space seems to take time, moving in inches.

But media confusion will still reign because there are still multiple ways to get content, as media consumers will continue to weigh their price/reward options.

And now a San Diego, Calif.-based nonprofit, Telletopia, wants to sell consumers just a package of over-the-air local TV stations.

This isn’t because of a strong consumer desire — but more about business considerations: a need for an easy-to-use service for TV stations to get their content online. Also it’s for pay TV providers -- cable, satellite, and telco. They can now focus just on cable networks, dropping their headache-filled  public TV stations carriage negotiations.  

So think about having a cable-network TV service (Internet or otherwise) an over-the-air TV service, as well as one or two non-traditional TV companies like Netflix or Amazon. (Did I forget about a mobile service as well?)

Don’t concern yourself with “data caps.” Be more worried about putting a “cap” on  the number of TV-media services you’ll need in future years.