T-Mobile has told its customers that it will end its legacy TVision Home pay TV service, effective Dec. 30.
The move comes a little over two weeks after T-Mobile launched a multi-pronged virtual MVPD platform--confusingly carrying the TVision brand--which includes the Philo-like, 30-channel, $10-a-month TVision Vibe service, and the slightly fatter TVision Live trio of tiers, starting at $40 a month for 40 channels.
Priced at $90 a month, the more traditional fat-bundled TVision Home service was the remnants of Denver started up Layer3 TV, which was acquired by T-Mobile in January 2018 for $325 million.
The resulting TVision Home service provided traditional DVR set-tops with pay TV contracts and packaging, but it delivered its goods over the managed internet through regional contracts with broadband suppliers with the necessary throughput.
As such, Layer3—and TVision—were limited to a handful of urban markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia San Francisco; Washington, DC, and Longmont, Colorado.
T-Mobile had difficulty scaling such a service, much less enticing streaming-generation customers with it.
It’s unclear as to how many folks will be impacted by the shuttering. T-Mobile never released TVision Home customer data. Layer3 said it only had around 5,000 customers when it was purchased by the wireless carrier.
T-Mobile is currently offering its new TVision OTT services to its post-paid wireless subscribers, with reported plans to expand the offering to pre-paid and non-T-Mobile customers next year.
The company continues to work with its programming partners, several of whom have complained about the way the platform has positioned their channels.
