Vodafone UK shook up the mobile music space this week, with an announcement that it is to offer unlimited track downloads, straight to the mobile, for just £1.99 per week.

Under a deal with Omnifone, a UK-based mobile music company, Vodafone will roll out the MusicStation platform, allowing users to download tracks from Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI Music and Warner Music direct to their handsets.

Customers will be able to sign up for unlimited downloads from MusicStation for £1.99 per week and the service will work on forthcoming as well as existing Vodafone UK 2.5G and 3G mobiles.

MusicStation automatically stores a user’s favourite tracks on the phone’s internal or removable memory. So whilst some phones can store thousands of tracks, others store less than one hundred. The platform uses the memory allocated on the phone to store the customer’s favourite and about-to-be-played music, so that users can listen to their favourite tracks when in Flight Safe mode and have access to the full catalogue when connected to a 2.5G or 3G network.

Downloaded MusicStation tracks and user playlists are stored centrally so that if a customer’s mobile is stolen, lost or upgraded, the replacement handset will automatically restore the customer’s music, playlists, friends and preferences the first time MusicStation is switched on.

Needless to say, if a customer stops paying for the service then all the music becomes unplayable.

Vodafone UK has been quick off the mark this week to reveal that it will have the shiny black 8GB Nokia N95 in time for Christmas. The operator’s Christmas portfolio will also include the Samsung SGH-F700V and the Sony Ericsson W910i, the BlackBerry Curve 8310 and BlackBerry Pearl 8100, as well as the Vodafone 810, Vodafone 720, and Sony Ericsson V640i.

The absence of the Apple iPhone in that list further suggests that Vodafone is not the chosen carrier for the UK.