A British company has released what it says will be the first standard application for downloading music to mobile phones, laying down a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes.

Omniphone says that MusicStation, which goes live in Sweden today and is due to be launched in the UK by the end of the year, will enable users to browse an online store and download an unlimited number of tracks for a fixed weekly fee.

The service has the backing of all the major record labels, including Universal, EMI, and Warner. For a fee of £1.99 per week, users can download as many tracks as they like while they're on the move, providing they have either a 2.5G or 3G phone.

Most mobile networks offer a music download service, but the majority are operated through the networks’ own internet portals, which means they can be clumsy to navigate, and often charge on a per-track basis, so that costs can be prohibitive.

Analysts said what was appealing about MusicStation was that it was a standalone application, meaning that the interface was much cleaner, and that it would be available on all 2.5 and 3G handsets – not just smart phones – so that its reach was potentially much wider.

At present iTunes can only be synched with certain advanced handsets, such as Nokia's N91.

"Apple's approach has always been to get people to play music bought from an Apple store on an Apple device," Rod Lewis, chief executive of Omniphone, said. "This is a collaboration between multiple parties, which means that is will be available on 75 per cent of the phones bought today."

Omniphone’s service will be similar to Napster’s, on which users can download an unlimited number of songs until they stop paying their subscription, at which point access to all songs is withdrawn.

The company would not say which UK networks were lined up to offer the service, but said it had deals in place with 30 operators, and that roll-outs across Africa, Asia and the rest of Europe were imminent.

The service is being launch with the Swedish operator Telenor today.

“This will effectively turn the majority of the phones sold today into iPods,” Mr Lewis said. “Customers will be able to access any music they want, anywhere in the world, completely legally, and give recommendations to their friends who are also signed up.”

He said that the service, which will be branded to individual networks, would be fully integrated into the handset, appearing as an icon in the phone’s menu rather than accessed via a portal.

Omniphone had been working on the application for two years, a spokesman said, and its unique feature was the “device adaptive architecture” which meant that it could be made to run on any phone following an “interrogation” to determine which version was suitable.

Rob Wells, Vice President of Digital at Universal Music Group International, said: “It’s hard to imagine a more compelling music experience on mobile than MusicStation.”

Stephanie Pittet, an analyst in consumer mobile applications at Gartner, the research firm, said that the quality of music download services on phones has been “less than lacklustre”, but that MusicStation’s service had a "good-looking" interface and was easy to use.

“In the past there’s been difficulties with finding songs in the operator’s portal, pricing, and other factors, such as storage, but this is a much more competitive business model than any we’ve seen, and there’s the fact that it is compatible with java phones, which will give it a much larger reach,” she said.

Omniphone said it was partnering with Musiwave, which already runs the back end of the music download offerings on Orange and Vodafone, to provide the serivce

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