T-Mobile tv service
T-Mobile announced today that it is getting into the tv game. Next year the company is going to launch its own TV service. To that end, T-Mobile is acquiring Layer3 TV to support to build out its service.
In a video advertising the news, T-Mobile CEO John Legere explained the decision as a logical next step for T-Mobile. Given the general dissatisfaction of customers with traditional cable TV offerings.
Layer3 TV was built around distributed TV channels by encoding them with IP. And broadcasting Layer3 customers via over the fiber optic cable. That means Layer3 TV will be somewhere in between a standard cable service and an over-the-top service. Like Sling TV, but there’s presumably no reason it cannot adopt those technologies for fully wireless service.
There are not more details on T-Mobile’s service yet. Like how much it will price, Which channels are available, or when it will launch. But it will be exciting to see however T-Mobile markets it to customers. Given that Legere has spent no small amount of time beating up on AT&T for bundling its own DirecTV now service with cellular plans.
T-Mobile’s mock-up screens for the service shows it integrating live TV and services. Like Netflix and Hulu, along with a powerful social aspect that shows what friends are watching. But it was still unclear if the final product will look something like these screens.
T-Mobile is not the only cell carrier working on a streaming TV service, either: in addition to AT&T, that started DirecTV currently last year, Verizon is also working on a streaming service, although the last word on that was that it had been delayed until spring 2018 at the earlier. That’s in addition to the numerous 3rd-party options that are out there like Sling TV, YouTube TV, PlayStation Vue, and Hulu’s live TV service.
