T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program may be less than a year old, but the network has been busy adding new streaming services to it ever since launch. The first big update came in August, when the forthcoming addition of Google Play Music to the system was confirmed. Google’s music service was the winner of a user vote on which service should join Music Freedom next.
Updated on 11-25-2014 by Andy Boxall: Added news of the latest Music Freedom services
Initially, there was no date attached to Play Music’s debut. On November 24, T-Mobile announced its official arrival, along with a selection of other new streaming services, taking the total available to 27. Google Play Music is joined by two more big names: Xbox Music and SoundCloud, plus RadioTunes, Fit Radio, Fresca Radio, Jazzradio, Live 365, Mad Genius Radio, RadioPup, Radio.com, Rockradio, Digitally Imported, and Saavn.
In August, T-Mobile confirmed six other streaming services. These were Rdio, Songza, Grooveshark, AccuRadio, Black Planet, and Radio Paradise. All these new players line up alongside the original members: Spotify, Slacker, Samsung Milk, Pandora, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, and iTunesRadio.
Streaming 66 million songs per day
If you’re new to Music Freedom, then it’s another of T-Mobile’s promotions to help encourage people to sign-up to the network. It’s a good one, too. It lets subscribers use any of the above music streaming systems without dipping into their monthly 4G LTE data allowance. That has the potential to offer up big savings. It’s not difficult to get either, and is available for free to all T-Mobile Simple Choice subscribers. T-Mobile says it has been a huge success, and is now streaming 66 million songs everyday.
Announced in June, T-Mobile’s outspoken CEO John Legere said offering such a data-heavy service as Music Freedom is only possible because of T-Mobile’s extensive spectrum, which is built to handle the already high data demands of its customers. Its introduction came on the same day as the Rhapsody-backed unRadio, an app which offers free music to T-Mobile customers, or subscription-based tunes for everyone else.
If the newly added music services to Music Freedom weren’t the ones you hoped for, T-Mobile promises to add more companies to the list in the future.