Sprint announced Monday that its price for downloading songs will drop from about $2.50 each to 99 cents, the same price for each of the more than two billion songs that have been sold through iTunes.

Sprint said it has sold over 15 million songs since it began selling them to wireless devices in 2005. The new price includes a copy for the purchaser's computer, and can be any of the songs in its library of 1.5 million tracks.

With this price drop, Sprint becomes the first of the top mobile phone service providers to match iTunes' song price.

The UpStage Phone

Sprint is also preparing to upstage the iPhone's release with its own new, Samsung-manufactured mashup of a phone with a portable music player. Called, appropriately, the UpStage, it is literally a flip phone.

First announced in January, the UpStage is a phone on one side, with a small keyboard and screen for texting messages and identifying incoming calls. Turn it over, and the other side is designed as a music player, with a larger screen and music-player-specific keys. Newly released units have "Sprint" branded on the phone side and "Samsung" on the music player side.

"The UpStage's double-edged design," said Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart, "is a double-edged sword." He said the form factor is "exciting, if all you want to do is make phone calls and listen to music." But he said it was frustrating to make text entries, such as for URLs or song names, because you have to keep flipping the phone.

The Battery Wallet

He said Sprint's 99 cent deal "acknowledges the current market expectation that digital songs cost that price no matter where you are." He noted that Sprint is actually upstaging Apple on this front because the iPhone is expected to be able to download songs only from a PC, not over the air, when it launches.

The most innovative aspect of the UpStage, he said, is the battery wallet, included in the phone price. The UpStage phone slips into its case, which has an additional battery in it. He said this "dramatically increases" battery life, from 2.5 hours to 6 hours for the phone use and up to 16 hours for music playback.

Sprint will also offer two new Power Vision plans for phone programming. Depending on the plan, Power Vision packages can offer up to 50 commercial-free radio channels, exclusive video programming of music videos and news, and unlimited use of Web browsing, Picture Mail, and mobile e-mail.

The UpStage will cost $149 with a two-year contract. The iPhone is expected to sell in two models starting at about $500. Sprint said the 99 cents per song price would begin early next month.