Sprint is throwing down the glove. It may not get to sell the iPhone, but it may manage to steal a chunk of Apple’s huge digital music business. Yesterday the operator revealed that it would drop the price of an over-the-air full-track song download to 99 cents, the same price Apple charges for a PC download on iTunes.

Matching iTunes’ price isn’t the same as undercutting it, and dozens of other companies have tried matching Apple’s price point without much success. Customers certainly aren’t going to toss out their iPods and buy Sprint subscriptions by the truckloads. But Sprint does offer one download benefit Apple can’t--or won’t--offer: mobility. With no difference in the cost to download over the air versus from the Internet and transfering to the device, people are much more likely to use the wireless network.

Of course, Sprint’s service will require a monthly data service subscription, but look at the alternative: the iPhone will require a Cingular data plan to use even a fraction of its computing and connectivity features, but as for the music itself it still requires synching to the PC over USB, despite Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and EDGE radios on board. And then there is the small issue of price. With a new Samsung Upstage costing a quarter of the iPhone, suddenly Sprint becomes a lot more appealing. I’m not saying that Sprint is going to make any kind of dent in Apple’s iPod business or that the iPhone won’t be successful. But perhaps the iPhone isn’t going to do the damage to the carriers that everyone seems to be predicting.

Contact me at kfitchard@telephonyonline.com.