It was announced yesterday by Verizon Wireless that it is to begin selling phones that allow users to download songs. This is similar to a service from Sprint, announced in October, which lets consumers download songs through its wireless network for $2.50. Verizon will charge $1.99 for a song sent over the air, as well as selling songs downloadable to phones through a PC from a Verizon music site for 99 cents each. Verizon will have three new phones able to play music, going on sale within days.
The phones will come with a relatively small amount of memory and an expansion slot for additional storage. Verizon said users could buy a 128-megabyte memory card able to hold 250 songs for about $30; a one-gigabyte memory card costing $100, it said, can hold up to 600 songs.