Vodafone launches unlimited music service

AUSTRALIAN consumers will have access to an all-you-can-eat subscription-based music download service for the first time from today.

Vodafone Australia has launched a new service that allows consumers to download as much music to their mobiles as they wish for $2.75 per week and it may soon compete with iTunes and Bigpond Music in the music download market.

The carrier’s music platform provider, Omnifone, said it was working on a version of the service, branded MusicStation that could be offered to home computer users.

Omnifone Asia Pacific managing director David Loiterton said that the company had begun work on a version of the service for computers designed to work with the mobile version of the service.

Karen Paterson head of Vodafone Live Australia said that the carrier would offer the fixed internet version of the service.

“We’re looking into that and we see it as a logical future development,” Ms Paterson said.

Vodafone MusicStation will be available on nine handsets at launch and the company has plans to make it available on more in the future.

“We’re launching on nine handsets but we’re going to be ramping up very quickly,” Ms Paterson said.

It’s not clear at this stage whether the services will be made available on Apple’s iPhone but Vodafone said it would be making a version of the service on some BlackBerry models.

Downloads to the handset would not be included in monthly data allowances Vodafone said.

It’s not known how enthusiastically Australian consumers have taken to music download services. Neither Apple nor Telstra have been willing to unveil how many tracks Australians have downloaded from their services.

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