Telenor in Sweden will be the first mobile operator to offer Sony Ericsson’s new unlimited music download service, ‘PlayNow Plus.’ In a statement today, Sony Ericsson said Telenor Sweden would launch the service in the fourth quarter of the year, with further rollouts around the world beginning in 2009. It adds that a special edition of the Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman will be the first phone to be launched optimised to work with the service, which will ship with 1,000 songs preloaded. According to a Reuters report, access to the PlayNow Plus service will cost Telenor subscribers SEK99 (US$15) a month.

According to previous reports, Sony Ericsson has already secured music catalogues from the ‘big four’ record labels; EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner Music Group. PlayNow Plus is being regarded as a challenge to rival handset vendor Nokia’s highly anticipated ‘Comes With Music’ service, which is scheduled to debut next month in the UK. Unlike most current mobile music offerings, both PlayNow Plus and Comes With Music will allow users to keep music they have downloaded after their subscription period has ended. “In the long term music lovers will clearly be drawn to devices which will come with unlimited access to music. It is such an attractive proposition,” Rob Lewis, the head of Omnifone, Sony Ericsson’s technology partner for PlayNow Plus, told Reuters.