Move over, broadband providers. T-Mobile wants a piece of the home internet market.
The carrier on Thursday kicked off a pilot for in-home internet service on LTE. At this point, the pilot is very small: T-Mobile said it plans to send invites this week to a "limited" group of customers "in rural and underserved markets."
T-Mobile aims to connect up to 50,000 homes, or less than 0.04 percent of US households, this year.
"Note to broadband providers: customers hate you!" T-Mobile CEO John Legere tweeted this morning. "That's why we're starting our journey into the home internet business! Today is the first step in a long process, but broadband providers should prepare themselves!"
During the pilot, T-Mobile expects to deliver speeds of around 50Mbps. The service costs $50 per month with AutoPay (or $5 more without), and there's no annual service contracts or data caps.
T-Mobile has some lofty longer-term goals for this new business. The company eventually aims to "disrupt the home broadband market," which it called "one of the most un-competitive and un-customer-friendly industries."
By 2024, T-Mobile hopes to cover more than half of US households with 5G broadband service exceeding speeds of 100Mbps. T-Mobile claims it will only be able to do that if its pending merger with Sprint goes through. (PCMag's Sascha Segan has more to say about that here.)
In the meantime, T-Mobile customers in areas eligible to participate in the pilot will receive invites via email and US mail with information on how to sign up.
"We're … laying the foundation for a world where we can take the fight to Big Cable on behalf of consumers and offer real choice, competition, and savings to Americans nationwide," Legere said in a statement.
Verizon recently launched 5G home broadband service in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, LA, and Sacramento. The company has promised to offer home internet everywhere it rolls out mobile 5G service.