T-Mobile will shut down TVision Home, the pay TV service it built from its Layer3 acquisition, at the end of 2020.
The company said that starting Dec. 30, it will no longer offer TVision Home service or high-speed internet service in its Pure Fiber and Double Play offerings. The decision follows T-Mobile’s recent launch of TVision Live, a new live streaming TV service.
“TVision Home was just the start of our mission to make TV better for everyone and remove customer pain points. We've been hard at work on a streaming solution since we started this journey in 2017. We believe that TVision LIVE will give customers the best possible choice in TV,” the company wrote on its website.
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T-Mobile said that current TVision Home subscribers will see their service automatically canceled on Dec. 30. Before then, those subscribers can try out TVision Live Zone and TVision Vibe for free through June 30, 2021. TVision Home customers can also swap out their set-top boxes for a TVision Hub, the Android TV device T-Mobile launched alongside the new TVision plans.
T-Mobile completed its acquisition of cable operator Layer3 in 2018 and after several stops and starts, relaunched it as TVision Home in 2019.
In October, T-Mobile introduced the reconfigured TVision Live with plans that start at $40/month and focus on news and live sports. Subscribers have the option of upgrading to TVision Live TV+ and Live Zone. The company also launched TVision Vibe, a $10/month live TV plan that only offers general entertainment cable channels from programmers like AMC Networks, Discovery and ViacomCBS.
Shortly after launch, programmers including NBCUniversal said that Vibe was in breach of programming contracts.
“We were very surprised with how T-Mobile decided that they were going to bundle our networks, particularly because we have a clear agreement where our networks are required to be carried on all their basic-tier OTT offerings,” said Zaslav during Discovery’s earnings call earlier this month. “We're in active discussions with them to quickly resolve that issue. We don't believe they have the right to do what they're doing right now. And they know, it's very clear to them, and they're focused on it.”