Alltel Corp. said on Thursday it is starting to offer cellphone customers radio channels from XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. as part of a bid to boost revenue with new services.

The No. 5 U.S. cellphone provider said that for $7.99 a month, users could stream 20 commercial-free XM music channels to their phones and could view the performer's name and song title on some compatible handsets.

Alltel and XM are following in the footsteps of a partnership between the No. 3 U.S. wireless provider Sprint Nextel Corp. and Sirius Satellite Radio. Sprint offers its customers radio channels from Sirius.

Both Alltel and Sprint are pushing data services as a way to boost revenue as the price of cellphone calls keeps falling amid stiff competition.