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New dawn for mobile music
Suncom Wireless, a regional carrier in the southeastern US, is the first mobile operator to offer Napster Mobile, Ericsson's new, hosted music service. The service launched on August 10 and is already striking a chord with consumers.
September 22, 2006
As two of the biggest names in their respective fields, Ericsson and Napster bring together the best of telecommunications and music-download technology. Ericsson is hosting, integrating and managing the operations for Suncom while Napster is providing access to its enormous catalogue of songs.
The agreement between Ericsson and Suncom is based on a partnership model and includes content aggregation, editorial content management and reporting.
The Napster Mobile launch is raising the tempo in a market where Suncom’s competitors, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless, are also offering music-download mobile services. Ericsson’s Asad Rizvi, responsible for sales of end-user services to Suncom, says it shows how valuable content downloading and music portability is becoming.
"The response to Napster Mobile has been much better than expected," Rizvi says. "The strong Napster brand supported by a focused marketing campaign has helped get the message through to the customer base quickly.”
Napster Mobile gives Suncom customers access to the largest mobile music catalogue in the world. Users can search and browse about through 2 million songs and choose to preview, purchase or play them on their mobile handsets using the integrated music player.
Purchased songs are downloaded directly to customers’ handsets and a copy is sent to their Napster accounts on their PCs – a feature called dual delivery. Users can then add the song to their personal digital music libraries for use on other devices, such as MP3 players.
Bringing music to millions
Ericsson has supplemented the service with Napster branded premium content (ringtones, images, wall papers etc.) for which there has also been strong end user interest. All content is easily accessed through a single state-of-the-art content portal.
The innovative service is allowing Suncom to stay in tune with the needs of its 1 million customers. Suzanne Lowry, director of product marketing for Suncom, says the operator wants to bring products to customers that are going to enhance its wireless service.
"More and more customers are looking to mobile phones for music downloading," Lowry says. "The features available to wireless customers today reach far beyond text messaging and web browsing, and suit an individual's unique lifestyle."
Suncom offers two Sony Ericsson Walkman-branded phones – the W300 and the W810 – that are compatible with the service. Both are equipped with music player, dedicated music-menu button, FM radio and built-in Bluetooth and USB connectivity that allow for the easy transfer of music and other files from a PC to the phones.
Research from Ericsson Consumer & Enterprise Lab indicates that mobile music is the most popular digital media service, and one that will only increase in importance for the telecom and music industries. Indeed more than half of handsets sold by the end of 2007 are expected to offer music functionality, as reported by technology research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics.
Ericsson offers Napster Mobile as a hosted service, a business model that makes it easy, fast, and cost-efficient for operators to launch the service. Read more here.
