BusinessWeek has an an interesting article about radio for your cellphone (Dial R for Radio on Your Cell).

Chances are radio services will be a hit with the 2 billion wireless subscribers worldwide. "Mobile phones are always with you," explains Nancy Beaton, a general manager at telco Sprint (FON), which became the first carrier with a commercial cell-phone radio service in December. "Because customers are familiar with how the phone works, adding radio can be very intuitive," says Beaton.

And many users want that addition. According to surveys conducted by America Online, a unit of Time Warner (TWX), more than half the respondents say they would listen to the radio on their phones. AOL is in talks with wireless service providers to offer its online radio stations on mobile phones within months.

Radio on phones is a good idea. I could see that it would be very useful. However, a couple of questions ... many related to my rant yesterday (Die Cellphone. Die! Die! Die!).

First, why the heck does AOL (or any other cellphone radio service) need to be in talks with wireless service providers? Why couldn't they simply be in talks with, you know, customers? The closed networks of the cellphone providers are really limiting competition and innovation (not to mention increasing the price).

Second, despite Miss Beaton's claim about ease of use, why the heck do we have to get the radio via a cellphone? Why not get the radio via an MP3 player? Why not let the MP3 player have basic connectivity for this purpose? A cellphone is great in some circumstances, but not necessarily all.

Radio service also could spark sales of other wireless content. "Since radio is how people discover new music, I'd look at radio as the trigger that would create follow-through sales of [popular content like] ringtones, ringbacks, and music downloads," says Lewis Ward, an analyst at IDC. If users hear a song they like on their cell-phone radio, they'll be able to immediately buy a related ringtone via their cell. That should accelerate the growth of the $500 million ringtone market, as well as sales of ringbacks and music downloads.

Of course, one reason the cellphone service providers like their closed networks is so that they can make more money via associated services. I still can't believe that people pay as much for ringtones as they do. Open up the network, let people buy ringtones without paying the cellphone service provider tax.

Most cell-phone radiocasters, though, plan to use existing wireless networks, but to varying extents. Motorola's iRadio, expected to cost $5 a month, will let customers download hours of radio programming via a PC. New radio-ready Motorola phones are expected to be unveiled this fall. Motorola plans to insert snippets of breaking news into these broadcasts as they're downloaded over its wireless network.

Downloading hours of radio programming via your PC already has a name. It's called "podcasting". Still, perhaps Motorola will share some of their technology, or help work on an open standard, for mixing breaking news with less time-volatile content. Would be useful.

via Mobile Content News