“Sprint Nextel Corp. is poised for a full-scale launch of its high-speed wireless network, a service that will include the first over-the-air music download store in the United States,” Bruce Meyerson reports for The Associated Press. “The newly merged cell phone company was planning a series of major announcements for Monday morning.”
Meyerson reports, “In advance of the announcement, Sprint Nextel distributed review units of a new cell phone equipped with EV-DO, the technology with which the company’s network is being upgraded to offer speedier Internet connections and other data services. The Samsung handset also featured a menu icon for music that leads to a service named ‘Sprint Music Store’ offering downloads from a wide array of genres for $2.50 per song. The purchase entitles a user to download a copy of the same song to a computer as well.”
“There already are a growing number of phones that can store and play music — most notably the ROKR handset introduced last month by Motorola Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. for songs downloaded to a computer from Apple’s popular iTunes store. But only a few overseas cellular operators have launched services where the music can be delivered directly to a handset over the air,” Meyerson reports.
Full article here.
Advertisement: The New iPod with Video. The ultimate music + video experience on the go. Buy it now at the Apple Store. From $299. Free shipping.
Related article:
VZAccess for Apple Mac OS X released for Kyocera KPC650 EVDO card (wireless broadband for PowerBook) – August 23, 2005
I don’t get this. Why do people even consider this?
eh…no thanks
In Canada, Rogers offers you the ability to pay for a song download on your phone and to then download it on your PC (I know, It sounds odd) for $1.25(canadian) and up. The difference here is that you can actually play thoes song on your cell, which makes more sense but for $2.50! We’re talking about real songs here, not ringtones!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />
This is going to be huge competition for Apple…Cell phone buyers have already shown that they are willing to pay upwards of 2 to 3 dollars for a 20 second clip of a song for use as a ring tone. I have a feeling Sprint will sell millions of songs quickly because of impulse buying and the fact that most consumers are idiots. Apple better be on their toes
Are you NUTS? I want some of what you’re smokin, dude.
Lots of luck! How many cell phone buyers by ring tones by the “CD full” or on a regular, recurring basis? There’s no way I’d consider buying a single song for $2.50 from my cell phone carrier just to have it on my cell phone. I’m not too worried that the iTMS is in any danger!
What format do the songs come in I wonder?
My other question is, do they have to pay for the internet connection while it’s downloading on top of the $2.50 fee?
I’m not saying any of us would do this…i would never pay that much for a song…but a large portion of consumers are idiots…how else would you explain Microsoft Windows large market share or the fact that people pay money for a Britney Spears CDs. People will buy $2.50 songs because a)they don’t have to pay for it when they buy it, instead they will just bill it to the credit card bill b) the majority of people buying the songs will be teenagers, who don’t have to pay the bill. People are dumb, it is a sad fact. $2.50 songs will sell. People pay that much for a ring tone…how else do you explain the fact that the Axel F theme song for mobile phones was the number one song in England http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4591685.stm
I am a Nextel subscriber. I have never paid for any of their ringtones, and I’m surely not paying for this. I wonder who does…
Some people are paying $5 a month to subscribe to a ringtones service. It’s fine with me. The more they are customized, the more unique my plain vanilla ring sounds.
I’d pay at most $3 for one song on my phone. $10 per month for ring tones which I like. I hope that we can transfer them to my computer easily.
Songs at $2.50 will not sell. Ring tones are not songs, and the comparison of the two is a very disingenuous trick by the industry to attempt a justification of the price. Ring tones are customisable features which are added to cell phones, and which, like go-fast stripes or alloy wheels on cars, are something which you use to express your taste and preferences (lor lack of) to those around you. Music is something you listen to privately – people will bnot pay almost 3x as much to download a track to their cell phone when they can get a LESS DRM’d version which is compatible with 80% of the music players (iPods) out there on their Mac or PC.
This is the cell-phone industry’s last-gasp attempt to hoodwink its customers by profit-gouging them and they’ve pinned all their hopes on it. It won’t work though, not at $2.50. Not even at $1. Unless the tracks are iTunes compatible, the music library management software of choice on 80% of the world’s music-enabled computers.
People forget its about iTunes too. No iTunes compatibility, no deal. Kids are stupid enough to pay $2.50 for an Axel F rip-off ring-tone because its “cool,” but they won’t pay $2.50 for a crappy incompatible version of a song that won’t easily play on their laptop, desktop, or iPod.
October 2006 MDN Headline:
‘Sprint Music Store’ reaches 1000 song milestone’
“Sprint/Nextel announced they sold their 1000th song today…”
If you can download it unto your computer from your phone, why not upload it to your phone from your computer? That’s free. Offcourse, after ripping a CD or purchasing the song for .99c in iTunes.
thurrott who complains about 128k iTunes music, will love this. He’s just that hypocritical.
this isn’t a make or break revenue stream for cellular service providers. it’s an EXTRA revenue stream. believe me, they are making bucket-loads of cash right now without music.
just like in the dot-com days of old, companies immediately want to add something to ‘new’ technology in the hopes that it is the next big thing. they’re not innovating, they’re filling in the cracks anyway they can in the hopes of becoming the next Apple.
No matter how stupid you think this deal is, people will buy them.
Why? Because the songs will be there. Not everyone in the US knows about iTunes, unfortunately. Those people are the target audience for this service.
Compared to this, the ROKR suddenly looks excellent.
I think, and it’s just my personal opinion, that people who buy ringtones are complete morons. Anyone who pays $2.50 to download a song is a blithering idiot. And of course, people will, because, by rule, most people are idiots.
I used to pay $2.50 for a cassette single years ago. That included the cassette, the cover, distribution, etc. Anyone who thinks a digital file of a song… stuck on your phone of all things… is a good deal deserves to lose money.
Oh NO writes – “This is going to be huge competition for Apple”
LOLROTFL!!!!!!!
I hate Sprint. They jacked me over royally. Anybody know what PCS stands for? Pretty Crappy Service. Doh, they dropped the PCS moniker as they consolidated their branding (after taking a beating in the LD phone market). I feel sorry for all the Nextel folks who now must report to Sprint for their invoice whipping.
I can already see people running down their phone batteries on a relatively slow and unreliable cell phone download connection, and just as the download is almost complete, Sprint drops the call, then when you go to try and finish the download on another call, they bill you a second time for the same song. Then when you go back for the third time to finish your download, they bill you again. I’m sure some pinhead in Sprint management has already figured they’re gonna beef up the Sprint bank account with all that dough from downloads and dropped connections. It will be months, years or never before users can straighten out their customer invoices and by then, the pinhead will have cashed out his options and taken a job at Google.
High tech is great. Sprint is not!
There is no way this is a threat ti itunes. NO WAY.
people are mostly careful with their hard earned money and after buying songs for $ .99
not many are are going to shell out the kind of money
sprint is asking for . Yea people will buy a song here or there but $2.50 is a lot of money, when you think of the size of peoples music collections and how many songs have been bought on itunes.
I’m trying to convince myself to spend the $2.00 on some videos I want in itunes. I figure for $2.00 I get the song I want AND a video. VERY nice deal.
The NANO put to rest that agrument that people don’t want to carry multiple devices for music and phone and/or PDA. Simply because the Nano is so light and small you forget it’s even on you, it’s so unobtrusive.
So much for Billy “Kermit the Frog” Gates prediction music phones will kill the iPod. The Nano has no bulk and can hang in shirt pocket un-niticed.
Just remember to take it out before you do laundry.
Son of a…….
Don’t underestimate tthe mobile industry. Todays infrastructure will be different tomorrow. Mobile phones are networked computers right out of the box. Cost of new cell phones are subsidized, keeping the cost down. Mobile designs, size and usability are improving. A LOT more compelling content is on the way.
Almost free, connected, and convienient, in a nice design, with access to your favorite content is nothing to ignore.
I think I will pass on this.
You gotta be mad to spend that on a song for a mobile!
Im affraid they have outpriced them selves out of the market – in a years time this service will not be available.