Cingular Plans Mobile Music for 2006

Leading U.S. wireless operator Cingular plans to launch a music download service for cell phones in 2006, at a cost "slightly higher" than iTunes.

Cingular Wireless, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, said it plans to roll out a music download service for mobile phone users in 2006, with fees which would be "slightly higher" than purchasing songs through Apple’s popular iTunes digital music service.

Cingular is currently the only mobile phone operator offering the Motorola ROKR, a cell phone which can play and manage up to 100 songs loaded into it from a computer running Apple’s iTunes software.

At a investor conference in New York yesterday, Ralph de la Vega, chief operating officer at Cingular, said the details of the music download service were still being developed, and he hoped Cingular could develop the service in conjunction with Apple Computer. The ROKR phone, de la Vega noted, is making sales, but needed time to build momentum.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs indicated this week at Paris’s Apple Expo that developing the ROKR phone was a "learning experience" for Apple’s engineers, and he felt record companies were being greedy in considering higher prices or tiered pricing structures for digital music. Jobs also indicated he was skeptical music services for mobile phones—such as that being developed by Cingular—would appeal to consumers due to pricing (which he estimated might be around $3 per song), but also because of the unappealing logistics of buying music directly for wireless phones. Consumers, Jobs reasoned, would still need a way to back up their music, transfer it to computers or other players, or move the music to a new phone if they upgrade or lose their handset.