T-Mo adds 6 services to Music Freedom, but not Google Play Music yet
The wireless carrier asks customers to vote for their top music service to stream without data worries. Google Play Music wins, but T-Mobile offers six others instead first.
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T-Mobile customers have spoken, and the company is listening. Eventually.
Six more services arrive on the carrier's Music Freedom concept -- which doesn't count streaming music data against customers' cellular data limits -- but not customer favorite Google Play Music, yet.
The carrier unveiled Music Freedom in June, as part of its wider campaign to win new customers by shaking up wireless industry standards, such as data limits that charge fees and contracts in exchange for subsidized smartphones. Though other carriers have linked streaming services to their subscriptions before, T-Mobile, the nation's fourth largest wireless carrier, hoped its unique take -- taking the data element out of the mobile music-listening equation -- would set it apart.
Wednesday , the company said customers have streamed nearly 7,000 terabytes of music and 5 million more songs per day than before the launch of the program.
In June, the carrier asked subscribers to vote for the No. 1 service to add to the program, and 750,000 votes later, Google Play Music was the most requested, T-Mobile said. However, the company won't include the service in the latest wave of additions, saying it is on track to add the service to Music Freedom later this year.
The services added immediately are Google's Songza, Rdio, AccuRadio, Black Planet, Grooveshark, and Paradise. Music Freedom already included Pandora -- the Internet's biggest radio service by number of listeners -- as well as Spotify, Clear Channel's iHeartRadio, iTunesRadio, Rhapsody, Samsung Milk, and Slacker.