Alltel Wireless has announced a new service that will allow subscribers to sync their mobile phones with music collections stored on their PCs over the Alltel network. The new service, Alltel Music powered by Celltop, makes use of Remix, a mobile music player made by the mSpot company.
The service connects a user to his or her PC and allows "anywhere access" to songs and playlists stored on the computer. mSpot's software allows a customer to browse their collection, and when the Play button is pressed, the song begins to play and also downloads to a memory card in the handset for future access.
Music powered by Celltop requires a $3.99/month subscription and currently only works with the Motorola Z6m handset. Alltel will make the service compatible with other handsets during the first half of this year, according to a press release.
I must say I've been impressed by some of Alltel's recent offerings, and Music powered by Celltop is very innovative, at least on paper. If the service is both robust enough and compatible with music stored on Web servers ("in the cloud," as the buzzword goes), the consumer could conceivably upload his or her entire music collection to some cheap space online and use a handset as their primary music player. A Bluetooth-capable musicphone like the Z6m can play music over headphones and stream it to a Bluetooth-equipped home or car stereo system, as well, providing for lots of versatility.
I'm sure there will be hiccups along the way, thanks to network coverage/traffic, battery life issues, and possibly file format and DRM (copyright protection) incompatibilities on the music tracks themselves. But kudos is still in order for Alltel for pushing the envelope when it comes to developing truly useful network services for its consumers.
Read the entire press release on Marketwire from here.
