Verizon launched their anticipated Go90 video service back in the beginning of September as a beta version of the app, and as of October 1st the app launched for all Android devices and iOS devices in both their respective app stores. Go90 was touted as a service which would be available even to those who don’t subscribe to Verizon Wireless for their monthly cell coverage, but Verizon customers would be able to access exclusive content through Go90 that non-Verizon customers would not. Verizon’s Go90 is also a free app and service to use, but it appears that Verizon plans to offer up a premium version of the video app that would allow users more content that you can’t get from the free model.
It’s said that the premium version of Go90 will allow users to forego any data charges for streaming video, so they could potentially stream as much as they want from Go90 and not have it touch their data buckets. For those on Verizon’s smaller data plans this could be a great offering if they’re also already using Go90. What’s unclear is how the premium model for the service would work. T-Mobile had recently introduced their own plan offering for customers to take advantage of data-free video streaming with BingeOn, which essentially scales down the resolution quality of videos that are compatible BingeOn services. BingeOn has gone through scrutiny from both the FCC, and now YouTube as of yesterday over complaints that it throttles YouTube’s traffic even though it’s not a BingeOn partner. Whether or not a premium version of Go90 would face similar hardships is unknown at this point.
In addition to a premium version, of which there is no known price for how much it might cost subscribers monthly, Verizon is rumored to be looking at offering a sponsored version of the Go90 service as well, meaning they would essentially have three available options for subscribers. Presumably, the sponsored model would also be able to forego data charges, likely with the inclusion of sponsored ads, although this is just a speculation. There is no time frame for the launch of the premium version, but the expected launch of the sponsored model is potentially hitting sometime in the first quarter of 2016, and it’s possible Verizon could look into launching the premium model around the same time.