Napster (Nasdaq: NAPS) today announced that the company will soon launch the first deployment of its over-the-air (OTA) music subscription service through Napster Japan, a joint venture between the company and Tower Records Japan, with NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest wireless carrier. The service will be the first deployment of Napster's OTA music subscription service and will provide DoCoMo's customers with wireless access to Napster's unlimited listening and downloading music experience with full integration with Napster's industry leading PC-based subscription service.

The new Napster OTA service will be available to DoCoMo's iMode subscribers via the soon-to-be-released 904i series of handsets, as announced today in Japan by DoCoMo. Napster's OTA music subscription service is an extension of the company's award-winning Napster To Go PC service, which enables unlimited downloading and transfer of tracks for one low monthly fee to compatible portable digital music devices and cell phones. Napster's new OTA subscription functionality will be available to DoCoMo's customers as an extension of the Napster To Go service at no additional cost and will be available to both new and current Napster To Go customers.

In addition to receiving full-length songs directly on their mobile handsets, when subscribers use the Napster To Go OTA service to download songs without connecting to a PC those tracks will be "bookmarked" and added to their PC collection. Further integrating the PC and OTA experience, users of the Napster To Go OTA service will be able to view Playlists available on the PC and download them directly to their handsets over-the-air. Users of the 904i series of DoCoMo phones will also still enjoy the option of side-loading content from the PC onto their phones, as with any other Napster To Go compatible portable music device.

In another first, Napster will offer the ability to integrate billing for the Napster To Go service directly into a user's NTT DoCoMo mobile phone bill. 904i series handset users will have the option to sign up for Napster To Go directly through their handsets and select integrated billing at the time of registration.