New Media Age (sub.req) reports it has had a sneak peek at a white paper that reveals T-Mobile is piloting an ad-funded music video download service in the U.K. “We’ve done some trials where we were allowing customers to download free music clips in exchange for seeing a 15-second ad before and after the music clip,” Lysa McIntyre, head of beyond voice for T-Mobile, was quoted as saying. “That was received well.”

The article reasons record ad-funded download figures reported by rival operator 3 probably confirmed T-Mobile’s resolve to launch such a service in the first place. 3 recently reported 6 million streams of video content have been downloaded by 600,000 subscribers since April. John Penberthy-Smith, 3 marketing director, was quoted as saying: “We are now looking to improve our ability to serve more ads across the portal.” 3 is also reviewing music as potential ad inventory. Ad funding can be applied to video as well as other types of content, including music and games,” Penberthy-Smith said. “It’s something we’ll be looking at.”