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Broadband & Mobile Featured Article
July 13, 2007
Napster Launches Music Service Over NTT DoCoMo
By Calvin Azuri TMCnet Contributing Editor
Napster announced that the company's unlimited over-the-air (OTA) music subscription service has been launched with NTT DoCoMo (News - Alert), Japan's largest wireless carrier, and is now available across the complete line of DoCoMo's 904i handsets, including new Napster-compatible products from Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, NEC (News - Alert), Panasonic and Sharp. It marks the first-ever deployment of the Napster Mobile service that seamlessly integrates OTA subscription and the PC-based Napster to Go subscription service for one price.
"We are very pleased by the progress of Napster Mobile among carriers and handset manufacturers globally. Industry analysts project a dramatic increase in the number of music-enabled mobile phones available globally, and we are seeing that the large majority of these phones, representing hundreds of millions of handsets, will be Napster compatible," Chris Gorog, Napster's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "Napster is uniquely positioned to offer carriers a turnkey, branded music solution which should provide the company with a substantial new growth opportunity."
Napster is also offering the ability to integrate billing for the company's unlimited OTA music subscription service directly into a customer's DoCoMo mobile phone bill, whereby users of the 904i series handsets can sign up directly through their handsets and select integrated billing at the time of registration. With the addition of its new integrated OTA service, Napster’s wireless subscribers in Japan, including those with subscriptions for ringtones, full-length downloads and unlimited OTA, now outnumber its PC-only subscribers in Japan.
Napster Mobile is now live with nine carriers across Asia, the U.S., and Europe -- DoCoMo, KDDI (Japan), AT&T (News - Alert)/Cingular, Dobson, SunCom (U.S.), TMN (Portugal), O2 (Ireland), Swisscom (Switzerland), and Claro (Puerto Rico). In addition to DoCoMo's handset partners in Japan, the world's largest cell phone manufacturers, including Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson (News - Alert), HTC and Pantech, are also offering Napster compatible devices in the U.S. and Europe.
Napster Mobile is now live with nine carriers across Asia, the U.S., and Europe -- DoCoMo, KDDI (Japan), AT&T (News - Alert)/Cingular, Dobson, SunCom (U.S.), TMN (Portugal), O2 (Ireland), Swisscom (Switzerland), and Claro (Puerto Rico). In addition to DoCoMo's handset partners in Japan, the world's largest cell phone manufacturers, including Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson (News - Alert), HTC and Pantech, are also offering Napster compatible devices in the U.S. and Europe.
Calvin Azuri is a contributing writer for TMCnet
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