• NY Times, Friday, January 6, 2006 10:30 AM

In a move that threatens Apple's dominance of the portable music market, Verizon Wireless said it will sell phones that allow consumers to store up to 600 songs. Verizon will charge $1.99 for songs sent over the air, and 99 cents--the same price as iTunes charges--for songs downloaded from a new music site it plans to launch in conjunction with its new phones. The move also creates competition for Sprint, which introduced a similar phone that lets consumers download songs through its cellular network for $2.50. Cell phones have far more limited storage capacity than an iPod, which at 30 gigabytes holds up to 7,500 songs. Verizon's phones will come with a small amount of memory and an expansion slot for memory cards; a 128 megabyte card that holds 250 songs will cost $30, a one gigabyte card that holds 600 songs will cost $100, the company said.

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