V CAST: Lots of Little Things, Nothing BigV CAST: Lots of Little Things, Nothing Big

Verizon Wireless' V CAST, the first U.S. 3G wireless multimedia service, is a classic case of how a lot of little things don't quite add up to one big thing.

V CAST offers a lot of little content -- video and games, primarily. Imagine shorter versions of the already-truncated television content shown on many airliners and simple video games -- all displayed on a cell phone screen -- and you'll get the idea.

Whether you like the service will depend on both how much you like the content. To me, it was a no-brainer: I don't watch this stuff or play these games on my large television or computer monitor, so there's no compelling reason to watch or play on a teensy screen. On the other hand, many will undoubtedly love the content.

But there also are some shortcomings to this service that may discourage even those who like the content. So, besides being a matter of preference, it's also a matter of how much cost and inconvenience you're willing to put up with to get the content.

What You Get (And Don't Get)

For fifteen bucks a month, in addition to your regular service plan with Verizon Wireless, you get short versions of some popular television content. For instance, V CAST offers news, weather and sports from sources like CNN and ESPN, as well as content from a variety of cable outlets like E! Entertainment, VH1 and Comedy Central. The video plays at 15 frames per second, which isn't optimal but isn't too herky-jerky, either.

The content is updated regularly throughout the day -- Verizon claims that more than 300 clips are updated daily. However, while there's a fair amount of content available as part of the standard $15 monthly fee, much other content is considered premium and requires you to pay more. That's true for all games, for which typical charges are either a $2.50 monthly access or $10 for unlimited access. The same is true for music videos, which cost an additional three bucks a pop.

What you don't get is direct access to the Internet -- if you want fast cellular Internet access, you'll have to pay an additional $80 a month for Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess, which won't work on the V CAST phones.

You also don't get streaming audio (a.k.a. Internet radio) which, given my personal tastes, is the most glaring content omission from V CAST. Perhaps that would demand too much bandwidth or perhaps Verizon simply couldn't find a partner to provide it but, when I'm mobile, that's the content I want.

Making It Work

V CAST is simple to use -- sort of. Most -- but not all -- usability issues relate more to the nature of the beast than Verizon's specific implementation.

So far, you can only access the service with three phones tuned specifically for V CAST. For the record, I reviewed V CAST using an LG V8100 phone. To be brief, I found little to dislike about the phone -- it did what it was supposed to and did it well. The other V CAST phones are from Samsung and UTStarcom.

I didn't like that I had to dive through many layers of sometimes-confusing menus to find specific content. This isn't the phone's fault or the service's but, rather, is an inevitable result of using a small-screen device with a limited keypad for input to sift through a large amount of content. If you have to go three or four layers deep into the menus just to change a ringtone on most phones, imagine how much more complex it is to select from dozens of different content options.

Another unavoidable problem is screen size. Let's face it: watching video on a teeny screen is for people who really need to watch video. While the LG V8100 provided crisp, bright images, the screen was still too small to, say, read titles placed by the content provider on the bottom of the screen. For instance, when watching a CNN clip, I could see that the person on-screen was Condoleeza Rice, but I couldn't read her name on the bottom. Because of this problem, less well-known newsmakers often remained anonymous to me.

One useful feature is that you can press a button on the phone and watch video in landscape mode, which does, in fact, make viewing easier. But that still wasn't enough to read titles.

A related problem is the screen blanker. Here I am playing Evel Kneivel 3D and I'm just about to make it over the ramp and land for the first time without breaking every bone in my body and the screen goes blank. I didn't know whether I'd made it until I touched a button to re-light the screen. I know I can adjust the screen blanking interval, but it was still annoying. Plus, lengthening the screen-blank interval would hurt battery life.

Also, even though the 1xEV-DO network is fast, with typical data speeds of between 300 Kbps and 400 Kbps, you have to watch an on-screen animation for between 10 and 30 seconds as the video or game data buffers. Again, this is a personal response, but, to me, the ratio between the wait-time and the length of the clips was wrong -- it seemed like a lot of waiting for a relatively little bit of watching.

What I Don't Like

Content is a matter of taste and the difficulties using the service were, for the most part, more related to the nature of the service than any particular flaw in its design. Having said that, though, there are some things that I just flat-out don't like about V CAST.

Specifically, I dislike the fact that Verizon has employed a walled garden approach to providing content. That means you get what Verizon Wireless gives you and that's all you get, kind of like AOL before it opened itself up to the Internet.

True, Verizon offers a lot of different content, but most of it somehow seemed the same -- heavily branded and marketed content aimed at younger users. I don't care about most of the content the service offers, which is a personal preference, not an absolute value judgment. But if Verizon opened up the network so that any content provider could pay a fee to make content available to users, I'd be more likely to get content I want. That, in turn, would make me more likely to subscribe. As it is, I felt far outside the target demographic for V CAST.

I'd also like to see the service offered for laptops. After all, many users -- myself included -- schlep a laptop with me frequently when I'm out and about. I'd far rather watch video on a larger laptop screen than on a tiny cell phone screen. A good model for this is satellite radio. You subscribe to listen in the car, but your subscription also enables you to listen on any computer.

Still, V CAST is definitely newsworthy. It's the first serious multimedia service offered via 3G in the U.S. If you like the content and if you're willing to put up with some annoyances, you may well love this service. But I question whether this sort of service will ever win broad acceptance, at least until screens get bigger and content is opened up to appeal to a broader audience.