15th June - Swedes have become the first to try a music download
service for mobile phones that is taking on Apple's iPhone.
Developed by British hi-tech firm Omnifone, the MusicStation
service gives subscribers unlimited access to music for a weekly
fee.
It allows customers to download tracks from a library of
one million songs while they are out and about.
Launches in the UK, France and Germany are expected to follow
soon.
Sound deal
Sweden's Telenor is the first operator to offer the service
to its customers but Omnifone has signed deals with 30 other
mobile phone firms across Europe, Africa and Asia. It has
no plans to launch the service in the US.
Tracks are stored on a phone's internal or removable memory
and the numbers of songs a handset can hold will vary.
Deals have been struck with the big four record companies,
Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner, and several independent
labels to populate the library of tracks.
The service costs £1.99 or 2.99 euros per week and
the fee is added to a customer's phone bill.
To encourage people to use MusicStation this fee includes
data download charges. Industry analysts have said that the
high fees mobile operators levy on data downloads has discouraged
people from using them.
While it is already possible to listen to music on mobiles
and to download tracks these tend to be confined to particular
operators or handsets.
Omnifone boss Rob Lewis said it hoped to tempt people into
signing up because MusicStation worked across operators and
75% of existing handsets.
Users can share tracks and playlists with other MusicStation
subscribers via the mobile network.
Playlists and data about which tracks a subscriber has downloaded
or listened to are stored centrally so if a phone is upgraded,
lost or stolen subscribers can rebuild their collection.
If users stop paying their subscription fee they lose access
to the tracks downloaded and their playlists. Omnifone said
it would preserve playlists so people can rebuild their track
list if they re-subscribe after a lapse.
The MusicStation service is clearly aimed at Apple's iPhone
which launches in the US on 29 June and in Europe in the Autumn.
"We've been building MusicStation for over four-and-a-half
years and to get it out there before the iPhone is very exciting,"
said Mr Lewis.
Apple intends the iPhone to become a music player as it will
synchronise with iTunes and let people carry around music
they have ripped or downloaded.
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