Sprint Nextel is launching an over-the-air music service, an offering the company hopes will entice customers to pay high per-song fees in exchange for the instant gratification of wireless downloads.
The Sprint Music Store went live Monday with a catalog of songs from EMI Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group that Sprint said numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
For $2.50 per song, customers receive two digital copies, one formatted for use only on their phone and another formatted for downloading to a PC.
Sprint's music service is supported by two new multimedia phones, the Sanyo MM-9000, priced at $380 on Sprint's Web site, and the Samsung MM-A940, priced at $400.
The phones come with a removable memory card for buying and storing songs; an optional 1GB card will store 1000 songs purchased from the Sprint Music Store, according to the.
Needs Power Service The Sprint Music Store service also requires Sprint's Power Vision wireless broadband network, which the company began rolling out throughout the U.S. earlier this year.
Sprint's $2.50-per-song price more than doubles the 99 cents per track price pioneered by Apple's popular iTunes Music Store.
Jupiter Research telecommunications analyst Julie Ask said she expects the new service to be a good demonstration of Sprint's Power Vision network capabilities, but thinks few consumers will change carriers to take advantage of such offerings.
"At the end of the day, it's still all about price and network quality," Ask said.
Sprint's $2.50 price tag means its service won't be the primary way its customers purchase online music, Ask said.
Still, she sees the Sprint Music Store doing decent sales on impulse purchases, and she applauded Sprint for offering both phone- and PC-formatted files for one purchase price
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