Costly Music Store Coming to Cellphones

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The new Sprint Music Store is the first legal music downloading service you can access right from a cellphone, and Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg gives high marks to the interface, download speed and playback quality. But he criticizes the 'stratospheric new price for the legal download of a single song: $2.50.' Sprint justifies the price because of the convenience and usability of its store. Mossberg responds, 'I believe something else is at work here: a lethal combination of two industries many consumers believe typically charge too much. One is the bumbling record industry, which has been seeking to raise prices in the fledgling legal downloading market even as it continues to bleed from free, illegal downloading. The other is the cellphone carriers, or, as I like to call them, "the Soviet ministries," which too often treat their customers as captive and refuse to allow open competition for services they offer over their networks.'"

Comments

Judge Greene's tombstone is rattling

[SysKoll]

Yup, cell phone services cost a fortune. And since there are now two main telecom companies in the US, it's going to stay that way. It's about time the stock holders get some of their money back, boys and girls. Let me remind you how it was.

Back in 1984 (how appropriate), evil Judge Greene dismantled the AT&T monopoly. Instead of a benevolent Ma Bell guiding hapless consumers through an ever-more complex world, we entered an area of free-for-all market. Ma Bell was split into 6 entities. Suddenly, there were multiple telecom providers! Phones sold in stores instead of rented! Competition! Falling prices! Granted, the USA then experienced an unprecedented telecom boom. But telecom stock went into the crapper.

For almost two decades, this orgy of consumer felicity continued unabatted. Then, fortunately, the Clinton administration issued the 1996 Telecom Act, which watered down Greene's edict and allowed a wave of mergers to take place in the telecom industry.

Now, only two telecom companies remain, having absorbed all the baby Bells. We are finally seeing prices climb and customer service go back into the abysses where it belongs. But it was a long, hard road.

(Yes, it was sarcasm. Thanks for noticing).

Re:Compared to ringtones, not so bad

[DeafByBeheading]

I like my ring-tones to actually sound like some sort of ringing.

Right on. Although, a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting around in a student lounge with some of my friends when out of the blue, we hear a modem trying to establish a connection. Turns out the phone of some guy in the lounge was ringing.

Best. Ringtone. Ever.