T-Mobile's TV service delay tied to company's 5G rollout

T-Mobile’s pay TV service is taking a bit longer than originally anticipated, but the company said that’s partly because it’s intrinsically tied to efforts to bring 5G wireless broadband into the home.During a Citi investor conference, Mike Sievert, chief operating officer for T-Mobile, said broadband and TV service go “hand in hand.”“We see a big opportunity in broadband and that’s one of the reasons why we’re also interested in video,” Sievert said.Sievert said that T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G will be available as soon as 2020, but he admitted that the “massive capacity gains” T-Mobile is anticipating out of its merger with Sprint will take a couple of years to unlock.That new combined company intends to market home broadband in 52% of U.S. zip codes, according to Sievert. Those markets, he said, will be places where T-Mobile’s 5G network creates more capacity than can be consumed by mobile users.“Our home broadband strategy is to sell excess capacity fully funded by the mobile strategy. It’s almost the exact opposite of AT&T and Verizon,” Sievert said, adding that because T-Mobile’s in-home broadband network won’t be overly burdened by capital expenditures, it will be “highly disruptive” from a pricing standpoint.There’s still work to do from a 5G in-home broadband perspective for T-Mobile, and the company said it’s taking its time with the video offering. But video will come before 5G in-home broadband, Sievert said, and T-Mobile still sees an opportunity in pay TV service even when another company is the internet service provider.