The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
The point of difference with Telstra's online music service is that it provides "dual downloads", meaning you pay $2.99 to get one song in two formats — one for your PC/MP3 player and one for your mobile phone. The value of this is of course questionable if you are aware of how to transfer music to your phone via Bluetooth anyway. One benefit, however, is that BigPond customers enjoy cheaper prices, usually a couple of dollars off per album.
+ 2 files for a decent price, BigPond customers receive a discount - DRM, 2 songs generally unnecessary
Boom Boom Pow: $0.99
Number Ones: $16.50
Sunny Day Real Estate: No
Also worth a mention are the alternatives and what’s still to come for us Aussies. MP3.com.au and Triple J’s Unearthed site are great destnations for free local music, and whilst you won’t see any big names, there’s still a wealth of undiscovered gems for your listening pleasure.
Spotify is a subscription based legal streaming service that is currently in beta, and features unlimited streaming access to millions of songs for 10 euros a month (around 17 dollars). The service isn’t yet available in Australia but should be shortly, which is a similar state of affairs for popular site eMusic, which is heavy on independent artists but is not yet available locally. Both are set to give the local scene a shakeup, as both Spotify and eMusic are very popular on an international level, for different purposes of course.
There’s no doubt that iTunes is still the top dog when it comes to online music, not to mention movies and apps, however other challengers will indeed come and go as technologies change and improve. One point that isn’t in question is that legal downloading is on the rise, and there will be a fierce battle between piracy and the legal music stores for years to come. Here’s hoping to healthy competition, and hopefully the legal options will continue to expand and improve as the beat goes on.
David Bass
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