The Sprint PCS My Music service uses Samsung's US$400 Uproar phone, which has a built-in MP3 player with 64 megabytes of storage that holds about an hour of music.
Sprint PCS, however, isn't yet offering wireless music on demand; at 14.4 kilobits per second, its data network is too slow for that to be feasible. To use the service, users must download MP3 files into the Samsung phone from their computers using RealNetworks' RealJukebox software. But Sprint executives said the service puts the infrastructure in place to deliver audio â€" and, eventually, video â€" over its network once it rolls out higher-speed wireless technologies in 2002.
The music service, the first of its kind offered by a wireless carrier, is targeted at what might be called the Napster demographic: 16- to 25-year-olds who listen to digital music. Timed for the holiday shopping season, the service will be free for one year to those who sign up through mid-January, after which Sprint PCS expects to charge about US$10 per month.
Initially, Sprint PCS higher-ups were nervous about the legal complications of developing an online music service, said John Yuzdepski, vice president of Sprint PCS. "I had five lawyers following me around everywhere I went," he said with a laugh.
Sprint PCS believes it has sidestepped the legal problems plaguing online digital music services such as Napster and MP3.com by requiring users to upload their own MP3 collections to a site, which is managed by Seattle-based HitHive.
Eventually, Sprint PCS intends to offer various kinds of audio content for subscribers to download, and Yuzdep ski said the company is negotiating licensing deals with record labels and other audio content providers.
Sprint and its cutting edge technology is major
contribution to the emergence of digital media on-line. As a poet--spoken word artist, Spoken X Digital Media Group is committed to bringing true
literature back into the center-point of universal entertainment. As Sprint continues to
side step the chaos of licensing issues, I'd hope
to see their organization reserve a few licensing slots for the poets to be formatted inside those Sprint pockets. And remember the slogan:"Take your favorite poet home via download whenever you visit your favorite music site!" Just a few words from the Spoken X Talk Show. Literati X coming
soon:Audio Lunch box, Rhapsody, Emusic, AOL's Musicnet, Music Match, Buy Music, Napster and Apple i Tunes. Peace!