T-Mobile ‘disrupts’ streaming TV service launch until 2019
One year since it promised a “disruptive” TV service in 2018, T-Mobile is delaying the debut of its streaming video service until next year, according to a published report Wednesday.
Bloomberg reports the delay is because the “project proved much more complex than expected.”
Sources said the company faced a difficult choice of either offering a garden-variety streaming platform or waiting until next year to deliver a more groundbreaking product.
A little more than one year ago, T-Mobile announced plans for a “disruptive” internet TV service, set to launch this year. John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile, said in announcing the deal that the company would “bring real choice to consumers across the country.”
T-Mobile’s bought TV service Layer3TV in January as the backbone of the planned streaming service for various devices, such as Apple TV. Currently, Layer 3 has a broadband-delivered subscription TV service available online and on mobile devices in Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Dallas/Ft. Worth.
Layer3TV, founded in 2013, offers more than 275 high-definition channels and 25,000 on-demand titles starting at $75 a month. The current service offers a cloud-based video recording service of up to eight channels at once, and access to apps like YouTube, Pandora, Facebook, and iHeartRadio.
T-Mobile declined to comment for the Bloomberg story. The T-Mobile media relations department did not respond to repeated attempts on Wednesday for comment to BESTAppleTV for this story.