T-Mobile Goes After Cable, Will Launch TV Service in 2022

T-Mobile is jumping into the TV infinite with the acquisition of Layer3 Telly, a Denver-based firm that describes itself as a "adjacent generation cable provider."

Details are scant, just T-Mobile next yr will introduce a service that will compete with the likes of Sling TV, YouTube TV, and DirecTV Now. "Go ready to cut the cord," T-Mobile says.

Layer3 TV currently operates in five US cities; T-Mobile said its TV service volition "have full advantage of T-Mobile's nationwide retail presence, elevation-rated brand and award-winning sales and customer care organizations."

"Today's legacy TV model is utterly broken," T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in a video announcement. "And information technology looks a helluva lot like wireless from a few years ago."

During a conference call with reporters, T-Mobile and Layer3 execs mentioned services like YouTube Television receiver, but reserved most of their fire for its chief rival AT&T, which acquired DirecTV in 2022, and launched DirecTV Now concluding year. They scoffed at the notion of adding a satellite dish to homes equally well equally locking customers into contracts and content bundles.

Pricing for T-Mobile's service was non revealed. DirecTV Now starts at $35 per month for sixty+ channels, and goes up to $seventy per month for 120+ channels.

"Requiring a landline only to get a ameliorate price on cable? It'south complete bullshit," according to Legere, who said T-Mobile's solution will be "Goggle box you'll be able to watch on every continued device you accept, wherever you are."

T-Mobile does not envision jumping into the original content space. If annihilation, there is also much content at the time, execs said, so the bigger issue is admission and discovery, which T-Mobile's TV service aims to solve.

Virtually Chloe Albanesius

Chloe Albanesius

Chloe has led PCMag's news coverage for more than ten years, editing and writing stories about the innovations that have shaped the concluding decade and the companies behind them. She also oversees the site's how-to coverage. Before joining PCMag.com, Chloe was a reporter covering tech policy on Capitol Hill for The National Periodical's Technology Daily and fiscal It for Incisive Media in NYC. She'southward held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press role in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American Academy in Washington, D.C.