Why T-Mobile Just Bought a Digital Streaming Service

Cellular powerhouse T-Mobile is moving into a new era with its acquisition of Layer3 TV, a streaming service that offers all major broadcast and cable channels in HD. With its purchase, T-Mobile hopes to become a major player in the cable streaming market, competing with services like YouTubeTV and Hulu Live. Linear TV no longer suits all consumers, especially cord-cutters who refuse to purchase cable packages. T-Mobile has found an opportunity within this new trend to offer its own streaming service through mobile screens.

T-Mobile’s experience in the mobile industry offers the company large quantities of data that rivals the capabilities of other streaming services. As Vivaldi CMO Agathe Blanchon-Ehrsam told Adweek, “The targeted and segmented data that T-Mobile collects will allow for more streamlined and targeted advertising. But even better is if the behavioral and actionable insights lead to curated content delivery and personalized audience engagement, which doesn’t interrupt like advertising, but enhances the viewing experience.” As she additionally notes, streaming TV represents a “game-changing opportunity to create contextual and more localized content.”