14 DAY TRIAL // T-Mobile announced the launch of its music download service, called Mobile Jukebox. The new service puts at users' disposal a catalog of over 500,000 music tracks, from five major record labels: Universal Music Group, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI Music and Warner Music International, as well as from independent record labels such as V2 and Beggars Banquet.
All the songs featured on Mobile Jukebox can be acquired for a price of ?1 per song. Users who purchase a track receive two versions of the songs, one for the mobile and the other for the PC. The mobile version of the track is sent to the phone in a compressed AAC format, while the PC version boasts a higher quality and can be downloaded in WMA format to the PC, where it can be stored, burnt to a CD or transferred onto an MP3 player. If a customer accidentally deletes a song or loses his handset, they can retrieve copies of their music files from T-Mobile's Jukebox website (available here), which stores all of the users' music downloads.
"We want anyone who has a mobile phone to be able to be able to access music the moment they want to, 24/7. So we created Mobile Jukebox, the music service that never sleeps for people to use whenever they want to, on the kind of handset they like, at one simple, fair price," Damian Byrne, Head of Entertainment at T-Mobile said. "We want to make it as simple as possible and great value, so we have made every track ?1, and charge it to the customer's mobile phone bill. We've also worked hard with handset manufacturers to make it easy to access music on phones. So we've got 'hard keys' and menu keys on certain models that offer one-click access to music on the go."
Mobile Jukebox is compatible with 32 handsets, ranging from pay-as-you-go low-budget phones to more sophisticated handsets. The service is available on both 2.5G and 3G networks. The technology behind Mobile Jukebox is provided by mobile music services provider Musiwave, an Openwave company.
To promote the service, throughout July, T-Mobile is offering every new customer with a Mobile Jukebox handset any five tracks for free, from where users can start to build their music collection.