Building up to its Feb. 1 launch of Vcast, Verizon Wireless today revealed that it would use Microsoft's Windows Media platform to power its new high-bandwidth video and audio streaming service.

Verizon Wireless will make PacketVideo's media player with integrated Windows Media playback the standard multimedia application on all three handsets released at Vcast's launch and make Windows Media format the standard streaming and playback format for all of its audio and video content. Verizon Wireless will also use media publishing firm ThePlatform's content publishing, management and billing software to handle individual subscriber content management, such as enabling users to receive SMS alerts about new content, set preferences and link all premium content purchases back to a monthly bill.

Vcast will stream video content at 15 frames per second, not TV quality by any means, but capable of "capturing the graceful pass of a tiny football among a myriad of players, or a weatherman showing storm cloud movements on a geographical map," said Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows Digital Media Division.

Verizon is launching Vcast off of its new EV-DO network, which it has been rapidly deploying cross-country since the fall. At launch, the consumer service will be available in Verizon's current 32 EV-DO markets, with coverage extended to a third of its footprint by the end of the year. Supporting speeds of 300 Mb/s to 500 Mb/s, the network will be the fastest cellular service in the country, and to fill that capacity Verizon has signed several deals with content players for repurposed and original audio and video multimedia and games. Earlier this week, Verizon and News Corp. announced that the Vcast service would feature three original drama series designed for the mobile format, including one-based on Fox's hit thriller "24." Instead of repurposing content from its existing TV properties, News Corp. is producing the shows from scratch, featuring new actors and separate plotlines.

UTStarcom today also unveiled the handset it will supply Verizon for Vcast's launch. The CDM8940, is the last of the three multimedia phones with which Verizon will kick off its service. Samsung released its SCH-a890 last week, and Verizon kicked off its Vcast market trials in San Diego and Washington, D.C., using LG's VX8000. Verizon will offer the UTStarcom phone for $300 without rebates, comparable to the $320 list price for the Samsung device's price of $320.

In a separate announcement, Verizon Wireless today said it would purchase the network and licenses of St. Cloud Wireless Holdings, which operates a small 42,000-customer carrier near Minneapolis.