Reston (VA) - Sprint today announced that it will cut the prices for songs in its mobile music store to 99 cents, getting rid of the $1.50 premium over what is considered an industry standard.

Currently, song downloads from the Sprint Music Store are priced at $2.49.  The markup over most other stores like iTunes and Sony Connect led many to overlook the Sprint service.  The new 99 cent price point matches the other leading digital download competitors.

The Sprint Music Store is an embedded application on most Sprint Vision phones and it allows users to download tracks directly from the phone.  Purchases generally include two copies of the song, one encoded for the mobile device and one in standard MP3 format that can be downloaded from a PC.

The price cut actually makes Sprint one of the biggest providers of $0.99 DRM-free music downloads.  Additionally, Sprint said PCS Vision subscribers will be able to download as many as 10 free songs per week.