Verizon Communications Inc. plans to make money from delivering TV over mobile phones through the company's new mobile video service go90. So far, no one has been able to convince large numbers of consumers to pay for a mobile-centric video service. Software maker MobiTV pulled its IPO in 2012. Qualcomm's Flo TV failed to attract subscribers and was shuttered in 2011. Dish Network’s Sling TV, which debuted in February to a surge in demand, saw growth drop by half last quarter. And both AT&T and Apple have postponed their streaming-TV services until next year.

Verizon is giving away its service, starting this week, and will try to recoup some of the cost by selling ads. The company must compete against the more-established, mobile-friendly streaming services of Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon.com and Comcast, without those companies’ robust libraries of video content.

Yet for Verizon, the goal is to attract an audience of teenagers to 30-year-olds, some of whom have never paid for cable or satellite TV. The company will offer "best of" programs from broadcast networks, the Web, sports and live events to stream and will encourage users to share videos on Facebook and Twitter. The go90 service will be available to the public Sept. 28.

Go90 will now offer TV shows from networks including ESPN, Comedy Central and MTV, in addition to short Web videos from AwesomenessTV, Vice and others.

As for data usage, the company still plans to charge for go90 viewing, but will offer 2 free gigabytes of data for three months to anyone who signs up.

Dish Network Corp and Sony also offer online video services. On Wednesday, Apple announced an improved version of its set-top box, Apple TV, without details on new content agreements.