T-Mobile’s Legere: Charter’s wireless service will be ‘irrelevant squared’

Don’t count T-Mobile CEO John Legere as impressed by Comcast’s report of 187,000 net line additions to its new mobile service in the fourth quarter.

In fact, speaking to investors today during Denver-based T-Mobile USA’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Legere was dismissive of the mobile efforts being put forth by both of the top cable operators. 

Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile is “very irrelevant, and I assume that [Charter’s soon-to-launch mobile service] will be irrelevant squared,” Legere said. “The furthest thing from my mind is any concern about the impact of cable.”

Specifically, Legere dismissed the notion that the MVNO-based services being developed by Comcast and Charter can effectively rely so much on Wi-Fi. 

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“It sounds like being sheltered inside your house with a Wi-Fi connection, looking out at the gigantic United States and saying, 'Hey, we're going to go cover that next,’” Legere said. “I’d rather be outside looking in.”

On the Layer3 TV purchase

After loudly touting its acquisition of startup Layer3 TV in December, T-Mobile was fairly light on details of its simultaneously announced plan to launch a virtual MVPD service.

However, the company did make one interesting disclosure: It paid around $325 million for the Denver-based Layer3.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile COO Mike Sievert described in broader terms the company’s vision for video, which seems to skew more in the realm of Verizon’s Go90 than AT&T’s DirecTV Now.

“The eyeballs are moving to phones for a reason—because everything is more engaging in a mobile- and a social-fueled world,” Sievert said. “Young people don't hate 4K panels with HDR video quality. What they hate is what's being served up to them on those panels and how antiquated it is and how non-engaging it is compared to the highly targeted social- and mobile-fueled content that they can get on their phones. We're excited about bringing those worlds together.”