Hasta La Gadget!

On Sunday, local Verizon stores in the Bay Area began demonstrating FLO TV, the mobile TV service which originally launched way back in April of 2007.

Now, however, the digital TV transition has freed up digital channel 55, which has allowed FLO TV (now called V CAST Mobile TV) to take off nationwide. On Monday, Verizon added the tech-friendly San Francisco Bay Area, Cleveland, and Milwaukee to its service area.

Monthly plans range from $13 to $25 per month, depending on the number of channels; at the low end, expect to receive just the major networks, with additional channels as you move up the price ladder. Both the LG Voyager and the Motorola Krave ZN4 support the technology.

(Note that these are “mobile versions” of the channels, so Fox’s daytime lineup is full of Fox Business programming, for example, with a transition into the primetime lineup later in the evening.)

Can you receive major sportscasts? Well, it depends on what you want to watch. Baseball games on ESPN aren’t a problem, and Wimbledon, the Preakness, and NHL games are or were shown via V CAST.

I checked out the service in my local Verizon store in Benicia, which sits between what locals typically refer to as the East Bay and North Bay. A replay of a college lacrosse match was somewhat grainy, but otherwise very smooth, and with no apparent dropouts.