Omnifone, a UK-based mobile music company, has announced a collaboration with Musiwave, a leading provider of mobile music entertainment services, to distribute an ‘all-you-can-eat’ mobile music service, MusicStation, that works on all major music handsets.

The service is the latest challenger into the mobile music market, which has gained new interest with the introduction of Apple’s iPhone. As these services compete, later this year, it may determine whether subscription services will be a viable alternative to Apple’s proven approach with iTunes digital music purchases.

For a fee of £1.99 per week (about $4), MusicStation provides subscribers with unlimited Over the Air (OTA) downloads to their mobiles from Musiwave’s end-to-end music platform.

“By working with Musiwave we will be able to offer millions of subscribers worldwide freedom to access the music they love, wherever they are and on whichever music phone they choose to buy,” said Omnifone CEO Rob Lewis. “Linking with Musiwave’s network of 35 operators will help us to quickly bring MusicStation onto consumers’ handsets so that people can start enjoying all the world’s music for a small weekly charge.”

MusicStation offers a number of unique features for consumers, including:

• Unlimited download AYCE subscription services for full music downloads, for a weekly fee: ¬£1.99 (mobile) ¬£2.99** (mobile and Mac/PC) or in Europe 2.99 Euros (mobile), 3.99 Euros (mobile and Mac/PC);
• Wide range handset reach across 2.5G/3G Java and Symbian handsets;
• Features include: background downloading whilst music plays / playlist management / music search / news review / MusicStation community features;
• Support for Advanced Audio Coding format (eAAC ) which enables faster mobile download speed and superior music sound quality for compliant handsets;
• Industry standard DRM solution, even for handsets with limited in-built DRM capability.
• Ability for consumers to automatically retrieve their favourite tracks, playlists, friends and personalised features whenever they upgrade or replace their handset OTA.

MusicStation will be offered to Musiwave’s 35 existing operator customers with Musiwave serving as Omnifone’s Preferred Digital Music service provider. MusicStation is immediately available internationally.

Musiwave provides mobile music entertainment services to more than 35 mobile operators in 25 countries including Vodafone, 3, Telus, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Orange, SFR and Amena. Its current roster of products includes premium mobile music personalisation services such as Smart Radio, which allows consumers to access customised mobile streaming music programming; music discovery engine, a second-generation on device portal solution that simplifies the mobile music experience; Music on Demand Service (MODS) which allows fast, full-length secure downloads of music directly to 3G mobile devices, and Music Wizard, which enables users to identify a song using their mobile phone.