Motorola launches iRadio music service

The US phone maker has just announced plans to provide official music and radio subscription services this year.

iRadio will put Mototola in direct confrontation with XM Satellite Radio Holdings and Sirius Satellite Radio, two car and family radio stations in the US. Sirius is also a music distribution service for phones belonging to Sprint mobile network.

iRadio first works in the Rokr E2 phone, not integrating Apple's popular iTunes software like the previous Kokr version. Motorola will trade the service through mobile content providers.

In October, Motorola revealed that the first iRadio device will be able to store music for up to 70 hours.

iRadio includes 435 commercial and free radio channels for such categories as Heavy Metal, Rockin 'Cowboys and Angry Women. The program allows customers to download content to a computer and switch to listening on the phone or car for about 7 USD / month.

Motorola will showcase iRadio in this week's CES consumer electronics exhibition in Las Vegas, and launch the C51, a device that can use fixed, mobile and VoIP services. This is essentially an extension device, operating in a traditional telephone network. However, consumers can turn it into a mobile device to improve call quality.

The C51, which will appear on the market this spring, when fitted with an adapter will be able to make Internet calls at low cost.