Napster the digital music pioneer, today announced that Napster Mobile will celebrate its first European launch later this month when it debuts on Telefonica's O2 mobile network in Ireland.

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12 - Hosted by Ericsson and featuring Napster's massive catalog of over three million full-length songs, artist images and ring tones, Napster Mobile will be available to O2 Ireland's 1.6 million subscribers through NTT DoCoMo's i-Mode, a mobile internet service platform currently used by over 46 million mobile subscribers across Europe and Asia.

O2 Ireland joins a rapidly-growing roster of top-tier wireless carriers, including Cingular in the U.S. and DoCoMo in Japan, who have chosen to promote Napster Mobile's comprehensive mobile music experience to their subscribers. This launch also marks the addition of Europe to Napster Mobile's list of leading mobile markets in which it currently operates.

"The European launch of Napster Mobile on O2 Ireland is a significant achievement for Napster, as it will mark the introduction of a comprehensive Napster mobile experience in a country where Napster does not currently offer a PC-based service," said Brad Duea, Napster's president. "We're very pleased to be partnering with O2 on the European launch of Napster Mobile, and are excited to give music fans in Ireland the ability to enjoy the Napster music experience."

Through Napster Mobile, O2 Ireland customers will be able to search, browse, preview and purchase full-length songs from the world's largest mobile music catalog and to enjoy Ericsson-aggregated personalization content via their i-mode wireless handsets. Beginning early next year, customers will also be able to enjoy these features through wap- and java-enabled handsets. The Napster Mobile handset application, which will be pre-loaded on select i- Mode handsets from O2, gives customers access to Napster programming, including featured artists and top tracks of the day, and contains a recommendation engine which makes content recommendations based upon each user's personal musical taste. In February of next year, O2's Napster Mobile service will begin featuring dual-delivery functionality, meaning all content purchased through Napster Mobile will be simultaneously delivered to both the customer's handset and to their PC.

The launch of Napster Mobile on O2 Ireland comes on the heels of last month's announcement that Napster and Ericsson have entered into an agreement with Portuguese operator TMN to launch Napster Mobile on that network, Portugal's largest, with over five million mobile subscribers.

Napster Mobile is based on an Ericsson service delivery platform tailored for media delivery. Ericsson will host, integrate and manage the round-the- clock-operations of the service for O2 under a managed service agreement. The agreement also includes content aggregation and digital rights management and is based on a risk- and revenue-share model.

About Napster

Napster, the pioneer of digital music, offers the ultimate interactive music experience. With an expanding roster of offerings including free, Web- based music listening and sharing, subscription and portable subscription services, and an advanced mobile music platform, Napster creates better ways to discover, share, acquire and enjoy music -- anytime, anywhere. Napster is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo.

About O2 Ireland

O2 comprises mobile network operators in the UK and Ireland, along with integrated fixed/mobile businesses in Germany and the Czech Republic. It also owns 50% of the Tesco Mobile and Tchibo Mobilfunk joint venture businesses in the UK and Germany respectively as well as having 100% ownership of Be, a leading UK fixed broadband provider. In addition, the group includes O2 Airwave, which supplies secure digital communications to the emergency services and other public safety organizations.

In Ireland O2 is a leading provider of mobile services, offering communications solutions to 1.6 million customers in Ireland. With offices in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, O2 Ireland has a total workforce of over 1,700 employees. In 2006, O2 Ireland was named the best company to work for in Ireland and one of the 10 best companies to work for in Europe.

About Ericsson's Managed Services offering

Ericsson has the telecom industry's most comprehensive managed services offerings, ranging from designing, building, operating and managing day-to-day operations of a customer's network, to hosting service applications and enablers, as well as providing network coverage and capacity on demand. As the undisputed leader in managed services, Ericsson has officially announced over 100 managed services contracts with operators worldwide since 2002. In all current managed services contracts, excluding hosting, Ericsson is managing networks that together serve 80 million subscribers worldwide.