A BRITISH firm will this week seek to upset technology giants Apple and Nokia with the launch of a mobile phone offering unlimited music downloads direct to the handset.

Omnifone is expected to unveil a phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona already loaded with its MusicStation service, which has agreements in place to supply songs from all the big music labels, including EMI.

The handset differs from Apple’s iPhone because tracks can be downloaded wirelessly over HSDPA and 3G networks, according to music-industry sources. At the moment, iPhone users download most of their music to their computer and save it across to their handset. A 3G version is in the pipeline.

The MusicStation phone is due in shops by June, beating to market Nokia’s Comes With Music service, which includes

a year of downloads from Universal’s catalogue.

Omnifone’s software is already available on subscription to Vodafone customers in Britain, and has been sold in Hong Kong, Sweden and South Africa.

Boss Rob Lewis said: “I can confirm we will be making a significant announcement next week but I can’t disclose anything further at this time.”

Operators hope the service will stimulate greater revenue from data usage.

The cost of sending text messages and document downloads abroad will be sharply in focus in Barcelona, as European Union telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding tells mobile-phone operators how far she expects prices to fall in a series of crunch meetings.

Similar conversations two years ago over voice charges broke down, leading to the introduction of legislation.

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