Omnifone announces MusicStation Handset
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Apple may have thrown down the first gauntlet with the iPhone but the UK's Omnifone is responding with what it claims will be the first handset with unlimited free music downloads wherever you are Â no computer necessary.
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Nokia , the world's largest  cellphone maker, unveiled four new multimedia phone models on  Monday, including successors to its top N95 and N73 models.
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Review The best-sounding music phone yet?
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Vodaphone, the biggest cell phone company in the world, has launched a music download service for mobile phones. [Broadband Blog]
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The premium mobile phone features sounds by Brian Eno. In Gear Factor.
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Omnifone will launch MusicStation Max, a service that will give people unlimited free music downloads to their cell phone.
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Omnifone wants to put a new face on mobile phone music downloads with its MusicStation service.
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U.S.-based Motorola unveiled a range of new handsets on Monday that will be built around its popular RAZR model, and showed a long-awaited music phone with Apple's iTunes music player software.
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Vodafone Group Plc  unveiled a  range of new handsets and services for the key Christmas period  on Monday including an exclusive music service offering  unlimited tracks, to challenge the iPhone in Britain.
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A new music service that allows  consumers to directly download an unlimited number of tracks to  their mobile phones for a small weekly fee from wherever they  are will launch in Europe on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.K. startup hopes to compete withÂ Apple's new iPhone by offering a flat-rate music service that can run on most of today's mobile phones. Omnifone Ltd. launched on Thursday its MusicStation service that allows mobile phone users to download as many music tracks as they want for â¬2.99 (US$3.97) per week. The company previewed MusicStation in February at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. The Swedish mobile phone subsidiary of Norwegian telco Telenor ASA is the first to offer the MusicStation service. More than 30 operators in Europe, Asia and South Africa have signed up to offer the service. To use MusicStation, users must have handsets preinstalled with the application. "MusicStation runs on any Java and music-enabled device," said Omnifone spokesman Tim Hadley. "We're talking about 75 percent of the phones currently available on the market." The company plans to have more than 100 million MusicStation-enabled handsets within the next 12 months. Omnifone has developed software that allows its application to be ported to the many different types of Java used on mobile phones, according to Hadley. One of the main benefits of MusicStation is quick and easy navigating and downloading -- unlike many of the carrier music portals, based on WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) technology, which can be time-consuming and difficult to browse, according to the spokesman. "The application is very comparable to an MP3 player user experience," he said. Downloads to mobile phones over 3G (third-generation) mobile phone networks can take between 30 seconds and one minute, all of which can happen in the background. The service also runs on GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) networks. Omnifone has signed licensing deal with several large music companies, including EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music International. "We're starting with over 1 million tracks," Hadley said. DRM (digital rights management) technology protects all of the music. The mobile MusicStation service includes several features, such as messaging and the ability to share playlists and tracks. Over the next few months, the company plans to offer a MusicStation desktop application. For an additional â¬1 per month, customers can have all of the tracks downloaded to their mobile phones automatically download to their PCs when they log on to the portal service, according to Hadley. Operators, music companies and Omnifone will split revenue generated by MusicStation. Apple announced this week that iPhone users will need an account for its iTunes Store music service before activating the device. The iPhone debuts in the U.S. on June 29. Â
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Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world&#39;s top mobile  phone maker, unveiled on Wednesday a new online music store,  new top-end handsets and a global gaming service as it takes on  recent rival U.S. rival Apple .
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The new launches include a phone with enhanced music capabilities and multi-media applications using 3G technology.
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Wireless provider rolls out first-ever mobile music store in the U.S.
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(InfoWorld) - Omnifone wants to put a new face on mobile phone music downloads with its MusicStation service. Built around a software client that runs on a wide range of phones, MusicStation links to a subscription-based online music store and allows users to build and share playlists, follow news about their favorite bands, and play and download music on their mobile for a fixed weekly fee, said CEO Rob Lewis. The MusicStation application lets subscribers download music over the air using GPRSÂ or 3G mobile networks. The software runs on phones with Symbian's OS or other phones that can run Java applets. Omnifone, based in London, hopes to challenge Apple's forthcoming iPhone, offering users a similarly easy-to-use music service from around three-quarters of phones currently sold, but giving network operators a slice of the revenue, Lewis said. The MusicStation platform charges music directly to the customer's phone bill and doesn't require customers to use a credit card. The company has reached agreements with 23 mobile network operators to use its music download platform to sell music from major record labels, including Universal Music Group. It has also partnered with Musiwave, a mobile music services provider that's part of Openwave Systems, to distribute the MusicStation system. Scandinavian operator Telenor and South African network VodacomÂ are scheduled to launch MusicStation first, by June. Omnifone will name four more customers in Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region by June, it said at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. Omnifone said consumers don't need a computer or broadband Internet connection to use MusicStation, although downloaded music can also be transferred to a user's computer with a premium subscription. MusicStation is priced as a weekly subscription; in the U.K., the price will be Â£1.99 per week ($3.87) or â¬2.99 ($5.82) throughout Europe. The premium service will be Â£2.99 in the U.K. and â¬3.99 throughout Europe. The platform supports DRM (digital rights management) technology, which limits how the music can be used, and tracks will be sold in the eAAC+ (enhanced advanced audio coding), Omnifone said. On 3G networks, they are encoded at 48Kbps, and on GPRS networks at 32Kbps to shorten download times. On phones with limited memory capacity, MusicStation monitors which tracks are played most often and deletes little-used tracks to free up space. They can, however, be downloaded again later as long as the user remains a subscriber, Lewis said. Peter Sayer in Paris, contributed to this report. Â
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After a four-year wait, billions of pounds spent on licences and numerous delays, Vodafone finally rolled out mass-market third-generation (3G) mobile telephone services on Wednesday.
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Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world&#39;s top  cellphone maker, unveiled on Thursday its new phone model 6301,  which features unlicensed mobile access (UMA) technology.