Music downloads aren't just the preserve of Apple and Napster. Earlier this week, T-Mobile unveiled its Music Jukebox service, which enables subscribers to transfer the latest hits over the air to their mobile phones.
T-Mobile follows O2, which has been offering music downloads of full tracks via mobile phones to its Digital Music Player (DMP) since the start of the year, and Orange, whose music services were announced last week.
Initially, the 500 or so tracks available to T-Mobile customers will be two-minute versions of recent hits. Full versions of the songs will be available later in the year.
However, to realise the potential of music downloads via phone, T-Mobile, along with Orange and O2, has several problems it will have to overcome quickly.
T-Mobile's five music-playing handsets (including Nokia's 7600 and 6230 and Motorola's E398) are high-end models, which, unless they are heavily subsidised, may prove too expensive for the network's target market - the young.
There is also confusion over standards. Some of the five handsets play AAC Plus files; others are only compatible with MP3s. Storage is a potential problem, as some phones only offer a limited amount of non-upgradeable memory built in. Users also won't be able to transfer the tracks to and from their PC either, and may end up losing their music if they lost their phone or storage card.
Pricing is a key issue. Bizarrely, T-Mobile's subscribers in the UK pay £1.50 per two-minute track, a third more than subscribers in the network's home German market, who will pay €1.50, and much more than PC-based download services.
Less of a worry, apparently, is piracy, with the record companies announcing they were very impressed with the network's digital rights management system.
O2 has responded to T-Mobile's offering by announcing an August launch for its first handset with a player built in - the Siemens SX1. Previously, users had to download tracks to a separate music player using an infrared connection. The SX1 comes with a 128MB storage card - enough for 120 tracks.
In the download arena, O2 is in the lead, offering 100,000 tracks from four of the five big record companies.
The key for the networks is ensuring that users download tracks to the phone over the air, thereby creating revenue, rather than transferring them through a PC. With less than a quarter of Europeans able to access broadband connections and not able to download music quickly via a PC, T-Mobile and its rivals clearly have a significant market to shoot at.
