Well, this is interesting. A London based company called Omnifone will today launch a new mobile music service that hopes to dominate the emerging mobile music market while also competing with online services like Napster and iTunes.
Called MusicStation, the new venture is a subscription service which will offer access to a huge catalogue of music, with all four major record companies involved. Subscribers will be able to access and download tracks to their phone 'over the air', by both 3G and 2.5G phone networks. Tracks will play on a customer's mobile device for as long as their subscription is valid. A premium subscription will also allow users to access the MusicStation catalogue via their PCs.
As well as boasting the support of all the major record companies, a number of independents (they say they're committed to getting as many indies on board as possible) and the publishing sector, Omnifone also say they have partnerships with 23 mobile network operators, who between them operate in 40 different countries and have access to 690 million subscribers. Those partnerships are key to the new service's success, principally because the weekly subscription, which in the UK will be £1.99 for standard, £2.99 for premium, will include the data air time for the download, so there are no additional costs to accessing the MusicStation catalogue.
In fact, many of the key mobile firms seem to support the new service despite operating their own music services. This is possibly because most of the network operator owned platforms offer a la carte download services, rather than a subscription package. But also possibly because the cleverer mobile networks recognise that, long term, they won't be able to control the way users interact with the mobile internet in quite the way they currently do. The fact that Apple's promised iPhone is arguably not really in the mobile networks' interest (even those that partner on it) - because it is very much linked to PC based downloading rather than over the air mobile downloading - might also have persuaded them to support Omnifone's platform.
Announcing the new service, Omnifone CEO Rob Lewis told CMU: "The launch of MusicStation heralds the next generation mobile music experience for the hundreds of millions of mobile phone subscribers worldwide who want a simple, easy-to-use digital music experience. MusicStation will give users of any music-capable handset the ability to legally access, download and enjoy an unlimited amount of music, from a global music catalogue supported by the music industry, all for a small weekly fee, wherever they are".
Giving his backing to MusicStation, Universal Music Digital Senior VP what not Rob Wells added: "Universal Music Group International are looking forward to the launch of MusicStation, it's one of the most consumer friendly and secure platforms we have seen and the worldwide potential of the MusicStation platform and its ability to make music instantly accessible to consumers via their mobile phone is enormous".
Omnifone will formally launch the new service at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona this week, with the aim of getting the service live in certain European territories in quarter two this year.