Cingular to Launch Own Music Service

Cingular is expected to launch its own music service, sociality the help of Windows-based music services like Napster, Yahoo Music, and eMusic, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The service, like Verizon's VCAST, would play on selected multimedia-capable phones.

Like VCAST, Cingular will permit customers to transfer songs from their own collection to the phones. Songs from the music service's subscription services could be transferred to the phone, and in 2007 the carrier plans to offer an over-the-air downloading option.

No pricing has yet been announced for that component, although the process of purchasing music will be similar to that current Cingular customers use to purchase ringtones from the carrier.

While both Sprint and Verizon have both launched music services, the popularity is still somewhat hard to gauge. Verizon declines to disclose sales numbers, although Sprint says it has sold 8 million tracks in the year since the launch of its own music store.

In addition to the move to subscription services, Cingular has also tweaked its MusicID service to allow users to identify songs and then download them from the Napster service. A link can be clicked on the phone, allowing the users computer to download the song, and later be loaded onto the phone.