A Pocketful Of Promise From Verizon
washingtonpost.com
By Leslie Walker
Thursday, January 20, 2005; Page E01
I was in a Las Vegas cab line two weeks ago when I felt the first pangs of mobile Internet addiction.
The minute I realized the wait would be long, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the new Pocket PC from Verizon Wireless that I've been testing. For the next half-hour, I alternately chatted with the man next to me in line and read the morning news at my favorite Web sites on the Audiovox XV6600 phone, which doubles as an electronic organizer. I confess I did the same the next day on a noisy bus ride, nodding politely as my seatmate carried on about current events while I kept peeking at the screen in my hand.
Las Vegas, along with Washington and Baltimore, is among the 32 cities where Verizon Wireless has upgraded its cellular network to offer ultra-fast wireless Internet access -- at speeds roughly equivalent to those available from wired DSL networks. Until now, the company's year-old "BroadbandAccess" data service had been available only to laptop users, who pay $80 a month for unlimited Internet access and have to buy a special modem card.
But the Pocket PC I've been testing is one of two new devices -- the other being a line of flip-phones -- that Verizon is finally rolling out to let people subscribe to its BroadbandAccess data network at significantly lower monthly fees.
The Audiovox XV6600, which went on sale this week, is the pricier of the two options and is aimed at busy professionals. It runs Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system, sports a slide-out keyboard letting users type with their thumbs, and provides Web POP e-mail access along with a new way to retrieve corporate e-mail called VZEmail.
I found surfing the Web on this device addictive, even on its relatively small screen. Partly that was because it runs a version of Internet Explorer customized for tiny phones, and partly because it delivers data at speeds of 300 to 500 kilobits per second when connected to Verizon's BroadbandAccess network (which also goes by the name of its geeky technology, EV-DO). When the EV-DO signal wasn't present, the Pocket PC switched automatically to Verizon's slower network, which blankets most of the country.
Unfortunately, this new rival to the BlackBerry and Treo devices costs $550 with a two-year contract -- plus $45 a month for unlimited Internet access on top of a standard calling plan. So the price of satisfying my craving for speedy mobile Internet access this way would run over $1,000 in the first year.
Starting Feb. 1, though, Verizon Wireless will introduce a cheaper line of handsets that also can access its BroadbandAccess network, though in a more limited fashion. The first announced is the LG VX 8000 camera phone, which sells for $200 after a $70 rebate. Its most appealing feature probably won't be the stereo sound or picture-taking abilities, though. More likely it will be the access it offers to the new video-on-demand subscription service Verizon Wireless is also launching Feb. 1.
Called VCast, the service will cost $15 a month on top of any voice plan and will provide about 300 fresh video clips daily. Among the VCast mini-programs I previewed this week were prerecorded newscasts averaging one to three minutes from CNN, NBC and Marketwatch, including a bunch of "NBC News Inaugural Minute" snippets recapping the inaugurations of presidents Nixon and Clinton. There were also football highlights from ESPN and Fox Sports; micro-cartoons from "Sesame Street," a magical routine from Comedy Central and weather forecasts from AccuWeather.
Subscribers will also be able to watch musical entertainment from MTV and an original lineup of "mobisodes," a new mobile entertainment format being created for cell phones that attempts to cram a story into two or three minutes of video. Itty-bitty programming coming soon includes mobisodes of the TV series "24" created just for phones. VCast will charge extra for some premium content, such as 3-D games and music.
Because it signals the coming of age of wireless multimedia services in the United States, VCast will be a closely watched test of whether and how much Americans will be willing to pay to be entertained by phone. Sprint, which pioneered its own video service in 2003 over a slower network, has vowed to upgrade its network this year to offer speeds rivaling Verizon's. Cingular, the nation's largest carrier after its purchase of AT&T Wireless, is working toward the same goal.
But Verizon's simultaneous rollout of two new services highlights one big challenge all the carriers face as they try to persuade Americans to ante up more for faster access to the mobile Internet: trying to explain exactly what people will be paying for. Often, the differences between these services are hard to grasp until you actually live with them.
I confess I considered the idea behind VCast trivial until I tested it. I mean, what self-respecting news junkie would waste time watching two-minute episodes of "Sunset Hotel" when she could be reading the latest battlefield reports from Iraq? Moreover, it's not live video; you have to download each snippet one by one, then wait 15 to 30 seconds for it to buffer before it plays. Still, some of the video struck me as surprisingly clear and bright. And what fuzziness did appear was less than I've seen in earlier cell phone video. The bigger surprise was the variety of content in VCast's menu. For $15 a month, it struck me as the kind of fare young people will snack on ferociously in down times.
Clearly, though, VCast-equipped phones are about entertainment, not productivity. While VCast comes with unlimited access to the Web at no extra charge, it is only through Verizon's specially formatted Mobile Web 2.0 area. And that area uses an older data display format known as "WAP," which is considerably clumsier than the Pocket PC Internet experience.
I did find that the faster speed available from EV-DO made reading news on a VCast phone a tad more tolerable than it has been on past WAP phones, but it was no match for the Pocket PC. Yet technically, both the VCast phones and the new Audiovox Pocket PC offer unlimited access to the Web.
Moreover, the Pocket PC isn't compatible with VCast, so it won't let users pay the extra $15 a month to sample video on demand.
And that, I am afraid, typifies the confusing trade-offs cellular carriers will be forcing us to make as they experiment with a ton of new mobile devices designed to do everything except bake bread. |
