AT&T Launches New Music Service

AT&T today announced a new AT&T Music application that combines the most popular mobile music services – song and album downloads, streaming radio, song match, lyric search and an enhanced music player – into a single, cohesive experience for AT&T mobile phones. The service is available first as a download on three of AT&T's most popular quick messaging phones, delivering the tightest integration of mobile music services available to this category of devices.

Within one mobile broadband application, subscribers to AT&T Music can:

• Listen to 40 commercial-free genre radio stations;
• Customize unlimited personal radio stations;
• Use song match to identify the tune by holding their phone up to music playing on the radio, TV or elsewhere;
• Search for lyrics to identify song title and artist;
• Preview, buy and download songs and albums straight to their phone; and
• Listen to personal music saved on their mobile device, including the ability to create and manage playlists and find music by artist, album, song or genre.

"We've long been a leader in mobile music and have been at the forefront in evolving the category to offer some robust experiences, but those experiences have largely been available though separate applications," said Mark Collins, senior vice president of Data and Voice Products for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "We recognized a need to create a 'no dead-ends' experience that weaves together all of the most popular music services, so customers don't have to jump in and out of different applications depending on how they want to access mobile music."

The app was designed to deliver deep integration of tasks while maintaining simple, easy-to-use navigation. A customer with a song line stuck in his or her head can enter those lyrics into the lyric lookup function to identify the song and artist and, from there, view full lyrics, access the artist's bio, preview and buy the song, or create a personalized radio station from that song.

AT&T plans to enable full song and album downloads through direct deals with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and indie music distributor The Orchard. Details on additional content providers will be announced in the future.

The new AT&T Music experience is available today on the LG Xenon, Samsung Solstice and Samsung Impression. AT&T plans to make the service available as a download on additional handsets soon and will begin preloading the service on devices beginning this summer.

Feature enhancements, such as the ability to purchase and manage ringtones and ringback tones from within the application, are also planned.

The service is available for $6.99 per month to customers who subscribe to an unlimited data plan. Song and album purchases are charged a la carte.

Customers with currently compatible handsets can download the new AT&T Music experience through the AT&T App Center, available directly from their phone or www.att.com/appcenter. Customers can also text MUSIC to 7299 to receive a link to download the application; messaging rates apply.

Source: AT&T