Apple's iPhone in Tune

Reports that wireless carrier Cingular will team up with Napster (NAPS) and Yahoo! (YHOO) go a long way to suggest it doesn't plan to work with Apple (AAPL) on its music phone offering.

But rather than turn up the competitive heat on Apple, the move by Cingular, which is jointly owned by AT&T (T) and BellSouth(BLS), could turn out to be a plus for the digital music king.

ThinkEquity analyst Jonathan Hoopes suggests that Apple might opt with its upcoming iPhone to become a "mobile virtual network operator," which could be a better deal.

MVNOs, as they're called, don't own their own spectrum but enter into deals with carriers to use spectrum for their own brand-named services. Virgin Mobile, for one, is an MVNO.

And it might make sense for Apple to forge ahead on its own, Hoopes says. "If Apple just makes a phone and sells it, the carrier gets the recurring revenue of songs and data," he says. "If they make the phone and deliver [it] in a MVNO, then they can potentially tap into a recurring revenue stream."

Success in the MVNO market requires a widely recognized and respected brand, loyal customers, differentiated content, expertise and synergy between the company's current business and the new venture, according to a ThinkEquity report from September 2005.