Napster and Ericsson have announced a partnership to offer the first complete, fully integrated digital music service available for mobile operators.

The service will carry the universally known Napster brand and combine elements of Napster's popular PC offering.

The service is scheduled to go live in Europe over the next 12 months and will initially be offered to operators in select markets in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America.

The two companies hope that cellphone-service providers around the world will begin to offer the Napster-branded product either as a subscription or a la carte model to their customers and the share the resulting revenue with Sony Ericsson and Napster.

The move comes ahead of a much anticipated Motorola iTunes phone which as of yet is still to materialise.

>> Napster - Official website of Napster