Verizon’s paid video services went live in 2005, but at this point, it simply makes sense to pull the plug. There are too many specialized competing services that have a wider choice of content thanks to licensing agreements and support for devices that — how should I put this — aren’t on Verizon’s mobile broadband network. Frankly, video shouldn’t be limited to certain mobile devices, platforms or networks at this point. That’s part of the appeal of services such as Netflix and YouTube: You can enjoy the content anywhere or nearly any device.

To my chagrin, Verizon is still keeping its NFL Mobile service up and running. Football fans on Verizon still have the exclusive ability to pay and watch live football games throughout the season on their smartphone. I’d gladly pay for the service as well, but I’m not currently a Verizon customer.

Speaking of payments, Verizon’s video service was available as part of the Smart Phone App pack bundle. The company says that customers who feel the bundle has diminished value as a result of the video service going away should call in or hit the MyVerizon website to remove the bundle from an account.

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Verizon is offering up the gaming client through its Verizon apps portal. It’s available as a free download and, after an initial free trial, the subscription fee will be charged to customers’ monthly bills.

Verizon has been gradually adding more content to its app store in an attempt to assert more control – and make more money from – its smartphone portfolio. Last month it rolled out an ambitious video search app, called Viewdini, which aggregates content from across premium content platforms such as Netflix, Hulu and Comcast’s Xfinity. The Exent deal, though, is a unique take on the carrier-developer partnership.

It’s not technically exclusive: Customers can download the app online, but it isn’t available through the Google Play store. So in addition to offering carrier-billing features to its partner, Verizon gives Exent a distribution channel that increases its chances of discovery. Verizon is surely getting compensated for that arrangement, though financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

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Verizon didn’t reveal any details about how this high-quality, long-form content would gel with its restricted data plans when the app launches later this month, but I suspect Viewdini may be Verizon’s first venture into the ‘toll-free’ mobile broadband: Rather than charge the customer for the gigabytes of video consumed, it charges the content provider.

Lately Verizon has been talking up the idea of reversing the mobile data business model (as has AT&T), giving its customers unlimited access to any video or over-the-top content service so long as the owner of the service pays the carriage charges. So far Verizon hasn’t implemented any specific policies – that we know of – but if it can secure the cooperation of content providers, it’s only a matter of time.

Viewdini would fit perfectly with that model because video consumes enormous bandwidth relative to other services. If Verizon customers were to make regular use of TV show and movie streaming they would quickly max out their data plans (or enter into throttling territory in the case of its grandfathered unlimited customers). Without any kind of tweak to Verizon’s capping policies, Viewdini practically invites customers to run up huge overage charges, which would hardly be a customer relations coup.

But the apps-charging structure provides a clue as to how Verizon might offer that pipe for free. “By simply searching for a title, topic, or star’s name, viewdini will let customers know which services have mobile video for streaming, and whether it is available  at no additional charge, by subscription, to rent or for purchase,” Verizon stated in its press release.

In each case, Verizon could skim a little from the top of each purchase, for instance collecting a portion of a movie rental or purchase fee. In the case of subscription video services like Hulu Plus or Netflix, Verizon could take a share of monthly revenue from every subscriber that used Viewdini or just charge the video providers flat per-gigabyte or per-stream fees.

Verizon plans to expand its initial line-up to movie studios and other TV sites. If it is able negotiate revenue sharing deals with every service it aggregates, Verizon could easily offer Viewdini as completely toll-free app.

That would make a lot of consumers happy, as they’d be free to stream away without worrying about their data caps, but it could have a chilling effect on the application developers. Netflix and Comcast may be able to afford bandwidth fees, but smaller companies may not be able to – especially if they’re offering up their content for free.

Comcast is already facing criticism that it’s running afoul of net neutrality rules for capping residential broadband data while giving a free ride to its own Xfinity traffic. But the net neutrality rules don’t apply wireless, so if Verizon wants to go the toll-free route, there’s nothing to stop it.

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