Rara in-car streaming headed to BMW dashboards Europe-wide without roaming charges
BMW is to offer access to British music streaming service Rara, powered by Omnifone, through its connected dashboards across Europe in its new Series 5 cars.
The deal includes a partnership with Vodafone’s mobile network across the continent, giving drivers access to Rara’s catalogue of millions of songs wherever there’s a Vodafone 3G single without any extra charges, and without the need to tether a tablet or smartphone to the dashboard. Each BMW Series 5 will have a Vodafone SIM embedded as a result.
“People listen to music in the car more than anywhere else, yet it’s still hard to enjoy digital music in the car,” said rara.com CEO Jez Bell.
“With 14 million tracks available on rara.com to stream instantly across five countries, we are looking forward to bringing the rara.com music experience to new BMW 5 Series users across Europe.”
BMW will be offering the in-car streaming across UK, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Pricing given for the German territory is set at €390 for the first year, and €220 for subsequent years. That’s substantially more than you’d pay for a year’s worth of Spotify, for instance, but the deal here includes the peace of mind that you’ll have Europe-wide access to the catalogue, so if you drive across the continent plenty it’s likely to appeal.
