Verizon announced the imminent (January 16) launch of its long-rumored, long-awaited VCast Music service for cell phones. A hybrid model will allow downloading on the computer for 99 cents, and mobile downloading for--what's this?--for a 100-percent premium of $1.99. Oh, brother. Pay for portability. Marguerite Reardon at CNET called the PC price a "discounted rate," as if $1.99 were a new standard for single-track pricing. The labels must rejoice at such presumptions, eager as they are to inflate the cost of iTunes downloads. As such, the VCast model could be regarded as a market experiment, to see if portable downloading, as yet completely untested, will gain adoption at twice the price of PC downloading.

You'd think the service would be priced attractively to encourage early adopters, not scare them away. Verizon will tell you that the $1.99 product gives you twice the value, because after downloading to the phone you get the PC download for free. But this twisted selling point is camouflage for the fact that you (probably) can't easily transfer purchased music between the phone and the computer. Verizon would also argue that $1.99 is less than the cost of a 15-second ringtone, and that's a thriving market. but labels and cell providers both risk catastrophe if they confuse or equate the ringtone market with the single-track download market.

Anyway, supported phones will be the LG VX8100 and the Samsung a950. I have an 8100, so I'll test and review the service when it launches.