It's official: T-Mobile is getting into the TV business.
TVision Home is T-Mobile's take on a TV service. It's launching on April 14th in Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Longmont, CO., and will expand to other markets later this year.
With TVision Home, you get a set-top box that uses your wired broadband connection to get you more than 275 channels, including HD and 4K content, as well as more than 35,000 on-demand movies and shows. A built-in AI will learn what you watch to make personalized recommendations, and because it learns not only what you watch but when and where you watch it, its recommendations will be based on the hour and your location.
In addition to TV channels, TVision Home will give you access to streaming content from services like Pandora, iHeartRadio, XUMO, CuriosityStream, Toon Googles, and HSN, and T-Mobile says support for services like Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Video is coming soon. There's support for social networks like Facebook and Twitter included as well, and you can check your security cameras so that you can keeps tabs on your house without getting up.
Also included with TVision Home is DVR for each user. There's 1TB of storage built-in, letting you record more than 400 hours of HD content to watch later.
Other notable features of TVision Home include support for smart speaker control, letting you use Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to control your box. T-Mobile also promises that TVision Home customers get a dedicated TVision customer care team, meaning that when you need support, you'll be able to talk with someone who is focused on TVision Home. T-Mobile also plans to launch a TVision Home companion app for Android and iOS so that you can stream TV to your smartphone anywhere in your home.
Now for the important part: price. TVision Home is launching at a price of $90 per month, including a $9.99 per month discount for T-Mobile customers that T-Mo is offering to everyone for a limited time. Each additional connected TV is $10 per month, and there are extras available like HBO and Showtime premium TV packages as well as on-demand rentals and purchases.
T-Mobile plans to offer a Satellite Freedom deal to tempt Dish and DirecTV customers to switch. With this offer, T-Mo will pay off those customers' early termination fees, up to $500, in the form of a prepaid card.
Looking ahead, T-Mobile says that it plans to launch TVision on "popular third-party TV platforms" at some point in the future. This means that you'll be able to get TVision service by downloading an app and choosing your home or mobile subscriptions, all without an extra box or other piece of equipment.
What do you think of TVision Home? Will you be signing up?
