Europe Gets Unlimited Mobile Music Service

European customers can now download an unlimited amount of music to their phones thanks to a new service called MusicStation.

The service debuted in Sweden on Thursday, and will launch in markets across the rest of Europe, Asia, and Africa over the next several months, as the company has agreements with about 30 operators. It aims to serve about 100 million phones within one year.

Plans to offer the service in the United States were not specified as part of the announcement.

Instead of charging per song download, as current music-to-phone services do, a 2.99 euro per week charge (or 1.99 pounds in the UK) would be assessed, which includes data charges. MusicStation users would then be able to download as much music as they want.

The amount of music storable of the phone would depend of the capacities of the device itself. Tracks would initially not be transferable to a user's personal computer, however the service would eventually have a PC component to permit users to listen to downloaded tracks in the near future.

"MusicStation's launch today heralds the beginning of the next generation of mobile music," Rob Lewis said, CEO of the service's parent company Omnifone.

About 1 million tracks would be offered from the four music groups it has content deals with: Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI.

Omnifone is only the latest in a string of companies in recent weeks to make mobile music announcements in an attempt to distract consumers from the launch of the iPhone. Apple will release the device on June 29.