The Wall Street Journal has confirmed widespread speculation that Cingular Wireless will soon debut a music service. Cingular remains the only national carrier with 3G to not have a music offering (Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless have both had their respective services operating for quite a while). According to the WSJ Cingular could make its announcement as soon as tomorrow.
Unlike its competitors, Cingular will first launch with software to transfer existing music to handsets and then later launch an over-the-air music store. Several all you can listen to music subscription services like Napster will be supported for music transfers, a first mobile phone industry. Even before the OTA store opens there will be an innovative music identification service that will automatically identify music in the environment (such as from the radio) and then purchase the music from an existing music service during the next sync.
Verizon Wireless has not disclosed music sales numbers, but Sprint has announced they have sold over 8 million songs over the past year.