Dow Jones' Terence Poon reports that China Unicom has started testing a music download service that gives its users access to songs from about 20 record companies.

The trial service, called Xuan Qu, charges subscribers between CNY3 and CNY5 per song. "The trial started June 28 and will continue until the end of September, when China Unicom Ltd., which operates the mobile networks, and China Unicom New Space will review and refine the service for a second trial, which will likely start in October and involve more users," Poon writes.

"music downloads are the fastest-growing value-added service around the world," says China Unicom's Tong Xiaoyu.

"Like telecom carriers elsewhere in the world, China's telecom firms have been exploring ways to increase revenue from data services, such as music downloads or mobile Internet, as charges for phone calls have fallen amid intense competition among themselves and with cheaper alternatives, such as Ebay Inc.'s Internet-based calling software Skype," Poon writes.

More here from the Associated Press ... and more here from Reuters.