Last week Sprint launched a new music download service as part of its "Power Vision Network." For a mere $2.50 per song, subscribers can download full music files to their phone for on-the-go listening and then go home and download the same song to their PC. All users have to do is go to the Sprint Music Store menu on their compatible phones (Samsung and Sanyo models only, please).

Sounds pretty cool, huh? After all who hasn't had that experience where you just have to have a certain song that's been banging around in your head all day or want to snag something you may have just heard on the radio? Sure. Who hasn't. But is it really that big a deal? Is Sprint a little late to the party? Does it even make any sense in terms of where digital audio is going in the future?

Maybe. Maybe not. After all, according to the research group Ovum, the wireless digital music download market is supposed to reach $1.5 billion dollars in the next five years. That's a pile of money, but it makes sense when you see that the ringtone market in the U.S. is supposed to hit $500 million this year.

But let's look at the Sprint model. First off, Sprint's charging more than twice what Apple charges on their iTunes store ($2.50 on Sprint vs. $.99 on iTunes). For a public that's getting used to downloading music for less than a dollar (if they pay for it at all) or getting used to subscribing to services like Napster, where $9.95 per month gets you unlimited access to music (albeit in a fairly limited way), $2.50 sounds like an awful lot of money to pay for the convenience of listening to music on the tinny speaker of your cellphone.

Still, though, the idea of having on-the-go wireless access to music on demand is probably more in line with the future of how folks are going to get content in the future than satellite services such as XM and Sirius that give you a huge range of channels to choose from but still serve up content in an old-school, linear fashion. You might be able to choose, but what's on is on and you're limited to what the service offers.

On the other hand, there's Internet radio. Sure, you still have the real-time aspect of linear media, but you've got a choice of over 11,000 "stations" (at least on the popular Shoutcast system, not to mention all the others) that can be "tuned in to" from any computer that's connected to the Internet. Your computer can also tune into subscription music services (such as the aforementioned Napster), making it by far your best choice for anyone who loves music.

There's only one problem: your computer is tethered to your desk and is a bit hefty to go jogging with even if it weren't. Sure, you can download music into your portable MP3 player, but if you want live or streamed content, you're outta luck, right?

Wrong. While Sprint is counting on the convenience of wireless on-demand audio pushing consumers to pony up $2.50 a pop for music, other devices are here or are coming online soon that will allow you to tap into the Internet using Wi-Fi and listen to music without a computer. Brit startup Reciva has begun to sell its player which allows you to wirelessly tune into 'Net radio stations and streaming media without having to go through your computer first. Another device from Acoustic Energy promises to offer the same functionality, as does this little number from Noxon.

Still though, these are big devices. The big breakthrough that's going on the market in January is the InFusion portable Wi-Fi radio from Torian. Looking remarkably like a Mini-Disc player, this baby'll let anyone in the range of a Wi-Fi connection listen to 'net radio as they walk, jog or lounge around.

InFusion may be a little ahead of its time, considering that the world isn't exactly covered in freely accessible Wi-Fi hotspots yet. But with initiatives like Wireless Philadelphia or Google's pledge to blanket San Francisco with wireless access on the horizon, ubiquitous Wi-Fi (at least in urban areas) seems like an inevitability, not a wild dream.

Wireless audio delivered to IP devices bears watching because if (and I daresay when) it becomes a ubiquitous reality, it's bound to shake the radio and music industries to their cores. Right now most of this is pretty bleeding edge stuff, though with Sprint's entry into the market and the growing availability of Internet-linked smartphones sporting Windows Media Player for playing streaming media (like the Audiovox SMT5600) people are going to expect the music they want any time, anywhere.

We may not be too far away from a time when kids ask "what's a radio?"

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