T-Mobile may be shutting down TVision Live and Vibe but the carrier said its TVision initiative is carrying on.
The company is still pushing ahead with its home internet business, which will run off 5G network capacity. The company has previously said it will take on “big cable” by providing 100+ Mbps speeds for wireless broadband to 90% of the population and offering in-home service to millions of the country’s households in the next five years. Video seemingly still factors into those plans.
“We’ve always seen video as a critical ‘door-opener’ for our forthcoming Home Internet business, because, even today at the peak of cord cutting and streaming, most homes still buy entertainment and internet connectivity together — and the #1 thing people stream on their home internet connection is video. Our TVision brand and our TVision Hub device will play a central role in helping customers get the best of media in connection with our Home Internet service,” wrote T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert in blog post.
The short-lived TVision streaming packages will sunset on April 29. Here’s what might happen next.
Hardware decisions
At the same time T-Mobile launched its new TVision streaming TV plans in November 2020, it debuted TVision Hub, an Android TV-based streaming dongle. The device was built specifically around TVision Live but still neatly integrates third-party streaming services.
However, there’s a vast market of streaming devices from Amazon, Roku, Google, Apple, TiVo and others that can do the same thing. So, once the TVision services shut down, consumer demand for TVision devices could dwindle, especially considering many people might already have a connected TV device at home.
Nevertheless, T-Mobile confirmed that it will continue selling the TVision Hub even after the TVision services shut down.
“The Hub is a fully functional Android TV device and remote. It supports both YouTube TV and Philo, so we hope our customers will continue to enjoy using it,” a T-Mobile spokesperson told Fierce Video.
Once T-Mobile’s home internet business is up and running, it will hopefully become more clear how the TVision Hub fits in.
More partnerships
T-Mobile has tapped YouTube TV and Philo as its streaming TV partners and will offer discounts on those services to its subscribers. Both are good live TV products but since it’s all about offering choice to consumers, it’s likely T-Mobile will add more partners to the list. The company promised “future partnerships” for TVision and that likely means fuboTV and Sling TV will join the list.
When Google Fiber last year ended its traditional TV service, it began offering YouTube TV and fuboTV instead and later added Sling TV and Philo to the mix. When WideOpenWest started experimenting with selling vMVPDs instead of traditional TV, it was those same four services.
T-Mobile’s wireless business has historically shown a willingness to partner with video services like Netflix and Quibi (RIP), so it seems highly likely that T-Mobile won’t limit its TVision to YouTube TV and Philo.