Sprint Launches Wireless Music Service

Sprint Nextel ( - ) today launched a music service, called the Sprint Music Store, that lets customers download songs directly to mobile handsets through wireless connections.

The store features an online music player that lets customers browse, preview, download, play, and manage digital music.

Unlike offerings from competitors Verizon ( - ) and Cingular, Sprint's new service gives customers the ability to download music directly to their mobile devices rather than having to download songs to a PC prior to synchronizing with the mobile handset.

New Phones Unveiled

The convenience of downloading directly to a phone comes at a high price, with Sprint selling songs at $2.50 a pop, while Apple iTunes customers pay 99 cents per song.

However, said company spokesperson Jacki Bostik, Sprint customers do get two copies of each song. One copy goes to the phone. Another copy is formatted for the PC and can be downloaded at the Sprint Web site, then burned to a CD using Windows Media Player.

Sprint's Music Store is tailored to customers using the carrier's high-speed EVDO (evolution data optimized) Power Vision Network.

In conjunction with the music-store announcement, Sprint introduced its first two multimedia phones designed to support the new high-speed service: the MM-9000 by Sanyo and the MM-A940 by Samsung.

Bostick said the Music Store catalog now includes some 250,000 songs in a variety of genres from labels including EMI, Sony ( - ) BMG, Warner Music Group ( - ), and Universal Music Group.

Costly Proposition

"Customers want the convenience of being able to download their music over the air instead of having to connect the phone to a PC," she said. "With our service, they can view the music by genre and by artist, as well create playlists."

That may be, but Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman suggested that the cost per song is too high to attract a significant following.

"Sprint is operating with a mobile mindset, apparently thinking that if they can sell ringtones for a couple of dollars each they can do the same thing with music, but there is already entrenched competition in the digital-music space," he said, citing the popularity of the iTunes store and the file-sharing networks.

Dual-delivery is a good concept, said Goodman, but he pointed out that music fans have come to expect that their downloads will support multiple platforms and won't pay more for the privilege. "This is not a good first impression for mobile music services."

The Sprint Power Vision Network will be available to about 130 million people nationwide by the middle of November, said Bostick, and is expected to reach more than 150 million people by early next year.

yahoo.com/