Omnifone’s MusicStation, a music service that allows unlimited downloads, became available today in the Untied Kingdome through a partnership with Vodafone. Vodafone’s UK consumers are the first mobile users in Britain to have the freedom to download, play and share unlimited amounts of music, direct to their phone. This comes one week before Apple’s iPhone launches in Great Britain.
Vodafone has an exclusive deal with music firm Omnifone that will make 1.2 million tracks available from the world’s biggest music labels for 1.99 pounds a week through MusicStation. But Vodafone products aren’t the only mobile device in the United Kingdom that can utilize MusicStation. Vodafone users with compatible handsets started downloading the service today. The application will become available on other handsets over the next few weeks, including touch-screen devices and BlackBerry smartphones.
Compatible phones will be sold from Vodafone and Phones4U shops. Users can create play lists and share songs with other MusicStation users on Vodafone’s 2.5G, 3G and the faster HSDPA mobile networks.
“On a very wide range of handsets, UK consumers now have the freedom to download, share and play unlimited amounts of music, direct to their phone, whenever they want,” Omnifone Chief Executive Rob Lewis said in a statement.
One nice aspect of MusicStation is the ability to keep music already paid for, even if a customer switches handsets. As long as users keep their Vodafone contract, old music downloads follow them to the latest handset purchase.
In addition to the Vodafone UK launch, MusicStation has agreed deals with Telenor in Sweden and Hutchison Whampoa 3 in Hong Kong. It said on Thursday it would go live with Vodacom in South Africa in early December.