Apple vs. Wireless Carriers?

According to Businessweek, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Cingular are planning on providing music downloading services to their wireless customers later this year.

This is in direct competition to Apple's current iTunes service. The article notes that the wireless cell phone audience tops 1.4 billion customers worldwide, making it an huge market.

As a result of this, Apple has seen resistance to acceptance of iTunes enabled phones from Wireless carriers. The widely publicized Motorola iTunes phone has seen unexpected delays -- likely related to the same issues. Even so, according to the Businessweek article, Motorola does expect availability of the service (and iTunes phone) on at least one mobile phone network this summer.