Buying a song from the Sprint Music Store will cost you more than online services such as Napster or iTunes. While most online services are charging 99 cents or less for a song, Sprint charges $2.50. However, with Sprint you get two copies of the song – one for your phone and one for your computer.

Sprint Nextel is rolling out a new high-speed network for its Sprint customers, and the music store is certain to be one of the highlights.

However, the new service does have some obstacles to overcome.

First of all, even though the Sprint Music Store is owned by Sprint Nextel, for the time being only those customers on Sprint’s wireless network will be able to access the new service. That’s because the customers that Sprint acquired when it merged with Nextel are still using Nextel’s network, which runs a bit slower than Sprint’s network.

Second, The Sprint Music Store is currently offering only about 250,000 tracks. Of course, that number will grow as the store progresses, but it’s a far cry from online services that currently have an inventory of more than 2 million tracks.

And finally, there’s the entire music-on-a-cell-phone concept. So far, Motorola’s ROKR, which is designed to play music that’s downloaded from the iTunes Music Store and then moved from the computer to the phone, has yet to acquire a significant user base. However, when you consider that ROKR’s music capabilities are much less than your typical digital music player, Motorola has more obstacles to overcome than just getting people to think “cell phone” when thinking about portable music.

But then, wireless competition has become pretty cutthroat as of late, and Sprint Nextel has been duking it out with Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless in the race to bring new services to customers. Being the first to offer a cellular network, music download service may not win the war, but Sprint sure has won the battle. At least for the time being.

“The music store is one of those ‘throw it at the wall and see if it sticks’ ideas,” Avi Greengart, an industry analyst for Current Analysis, said. “[Sprint Nextel] can’t let Verizon take and hold a lead in terms of video and music. If Sprint waited on the sidelines too long, they could lose what makes them unique.”