Washington area residents already can check their e-mail, make phone calls and surf the Web on their hand-held personal data assistants. Soon, some will also be able to listen to the radio and transfer money from their savings to their checking account.
Sprint announced Wednesday that customers with Power Vision phones can now use Pandora, an Internet service that allows them to call up specific music through their phones. Also, Bank of America rolled out a new secure online banking service that allows users to pay bills, transfer money and check balances through their mobiles.
“Mobile banking extends the convenience and control of online banking to anywhere our customers are,” said Sanjay Gupta, an e-Commerce executive at the bank. “If you own a cell phone with mobile Internet access, you are connected to your finances anytime, anywhere.”
The service grants Bank of America customer access to features available through the bank’s Web site. It is available to any of the bank’s 20 million online customers with Internet access on their phone.
The Pandora service available to Sprint customers allows users to enter a song or artist, then have a radio station with songs of the same style streamed through their phone.
This service is available online at www.Pandora.com and has 6.5 million users.
Sprint gives users who sign up with Pandora online direct access to their accounts.
“Pandora is a great way to break out of the same songs on your playlist and hear some new music that you may have never found otherwise,” said Jeff Luther, director of entertainment wireless data for Sprint.
