NEW YORK – AT&T Inc. (T) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) are launching a service that lets people use Cingular mobile phones to get access to their photos, e-mail, instant messaging and address books on their Yahoo accounts, AT&T said on Tuesday.
The AT&T Yahoo Go Mobile service is part of the Yahoo Go brand, the Internet media company's push to make its services available to users on a variety of devices from mobile phones to televisions.
"It's the first kind of baby steps toward this whole concept of an anytime-anywhere device," said Matt Davis, director of consumer multiplay services at IDC, a market research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts.
The phone also includes an MP3 music player and a digital voice recorder.
Go Mobile, which will be available on the Nokia 6682 mobile phone, will be sold online, in AT&T's 13-state service area and at some Cingular Wireless stores in Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; and Los Angeles.
Cingular, the nation's largest wireless company, is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth Corp. (BLS).
The phone costs $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate from Nokia with a two-year subscription to a Cingular wireless service plan. AT&T also recommends that customers subscribe to its wireless data service.
The unlimited monthly service costs about $19.99 a month, an AT&T spokesman said.