AT & T; Inc. said Monday that it is making Napster Inc.’s entire music catalog available to its customers for wireless download starting next month.

The service will expand the telecom’s download offerings beyond the independent music it offered through eMusic.com and should allow it to compete with rivals Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. Los Angeles-based Napster has a catalog of more than five million songs.

AT & T; of San Antonio, Texas, did not specify which phones the service would work with but did say that it will not work with Apple Inc.’s iPhone, which is tied to iTunes service and uses Wi-Fi networks, not a cellular signal, to download songs similar to how a computer does it.

AT & T; said that songs will cost $1.99 each, or $7.49 for five downloads per month. Customers will also automatically receive an e-mail with every download that allows them to send a copy of the song to their computer.

This is by far the largest deal for Napster, which has similar deals with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo as well as other, much smaller providers. AT & T; is the largest cellular provider in the country and with this deal, should make Napster a direct competitor with iTunes.

Shares in Napster gained 2.2 percent Monday to $2.23 in afternoon trading Monday