WATCH VIDEO. T-Mobile has introduced TVision Home, a rebranded and upgraded version of Layer3 TV, which will launch in eight US cities on April 14.
TVision Home will initially cover Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington DC metro areas, as well as Longmont CO, with other markets coming later this year.
The TVision Home service is a rebrand of Layer3’s service, which is positioned as an alternative to cable or satellite TV in the US. It uses an IP set-top box to offer over 275 channels as well as a VOD library and online streaming apps.
T-Mobile is also launching Satellite Freedom and will pay off early contract termination fees for Dish and DirecTV customers, up to $500 via prepaid card, when they switch to TVision Home. T-Mobile also announced that Netflix and other streaming apps will be available on TVision Home, and the operator shared plans for TVision to run on popular third-party TV platforms in the future.
Following on its deal with Viacom last week, T-Mobile also announced they will launch nationwide streaming services later in 2019 as part of its disruptive approach.
“The Un-carrier has already changed wireless for good… and today’s news brings us one step closer to taking on Big Cable,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile.
“And with the New T-Mobile, we can do more than just offer home TV service. We can offer millions of Americans more choice and competition for TV AND home broadband. I can’t wait to begin un-cabling cable and giving millions the opportunity to cut the cord with Big Cable forever.”
The service uses the customer’s wired broadband connection and includes more than 275 channels, including HD premium channels and 4K content, and T-Mobile promises more than 35,000 on-demand movies and shows. Customers also get a PVR with 1TB of storage, letting them save more than 400 hours of HD content for viewing later.
Along with traditional TV channels, T-Mobile says that streaming services like Pandora, iHeartRadio, Xumo, CuriosityStream, Toon Googles, and HSN will be available at launch, with Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Video coming later. People can connect their social networks to view Facebook photos and Twitter profiles, too, and customers can access security cameras to keep an eye on the house. Support for controlling TVision Home with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant is included as well.
TVision Home will cost $90 per month, including a $9.99 per month discount for T-Mobile customers that’s available to everyone for a limited time. Viewers can add connected TVs for $10 per month per television set. Premium TV packages such as HBO and Showtime as well as on-demand rentals are extra.
