T-Mobile is now looking to get into TV service area. The wireless company announced today that it’s planning to launch its own TV service sometime next year. To help with the service, T-Mobile has acquired Layer3 TV.
The company made a new video announcing the news where T-Mobile CEO John Legere described the decision as the next best step for the company, especially since the general dissatisfaction customers have felt with traditional cable TV offerings. Streaming services such as Sling TV and DirecTV are increasingly popular and are gaining more traction everyday.
Speaking in terms of Layer3 TV, the service was built around delivering TV channels by encoding them with IP and broadcasting everything over fiber optic cable to Layer3 subscribers. This service is a hybrid between traditional cable service and over-the-top services like Sling TV. T-Mobile feels that there’s no reason to not assume both technologies to offer a new service from best of both worlds.
While T-Mobile is planning to launch this service, we don’t have further details such as cost, channels availability, or when the service will launch. It will be interesting to see how T-Mobile plans to bring its customers onboard to subscriber to the service. Knowing how T-Mobile has brought a lot of success to itself over the last few years, you can expect the service to be discounted for its customers or even bundle it with its wireless plans like AT&T has done with DirecTV Now service.
T-Mobile has provided us with some mock up screens as to what the service may look like when integrating Live TV and other services like Netflix and Hulu. There will also be social aspects that will be integrated with the service. Pretty much, T-Mobile wants to create an all-in-one solution where you can watch live TV, watch shows from Netflix and Hulu, and also share it with your friends and family.
