Last checked at 
By Paul Sandle
LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Vodafone has turned tosports and music to set its 4G superfast mobile service apartwhen it finally launches in Britain later this month incompetition with O2 and the well-established offer from EE.
The mobile operator, the third largest after EE andTelefonica's O2 in Britain, is offering 150 hours ofPremier League soccer from Sky Sports or music fromonline streaming service Spotify Premium as well as unlimiteddata for three months to customers who switch.
"Our view on what 4G brings is very different to ourcompetitors," Guy Laurence, chief executive of Vodafone UK, saidon Wednesday.
"We believe it's all about entertainment, so we intend tobring our customers the very best in entertainment built intothe price plans for 4G."
Britain has been slow to introduce superfast broadbandcompared with the United States and other European countries.
Vodafone is joining O2 in launching 4G services on August29, bringing competition to EE, which has had the superfastmobile broadband market to itself since October 2012.
The roll-out is seen as vital to the future of mobileoperators which have been squeezed by fierce competition andfalling prices in their core European markets, while having toprovide faster networks for consumers who increasingly want towatch video on the go.
The Vodafone 4G service, which starts at 26 pounds ($40) amonth, in line with rivals, will be available only in London atlaunch, and in 12 further cities by the end of the year.
But all Vodafone customers will be able to add the sport ormusic services to existing bundled packages of data, texts andvoice calls for an additional 5 pounds a month, Laurence said,and then move to the faster network when it is rolled out.
Ovum telecoms analyst Emeka Obiodu said it was remarkablethat Vodafone was focusing on the tariff and content rather thanspeed and coverage.
"We sense that Vodafone wants to avoid the 3G lesson whereit worked so hard to create the best 3G network, yet lost out asrivals, especially O2, delivered a better appealing propositionto customers," he said.
"So this time, Vodafone is focusing on getting thecommercial proposition right. We expect the deals with Spotifyand Sky Sports to appeal to a lot of customers, although thedownside is that Vodafone might have been forced to rush out theannouncement, when it has covered only a few cities, as to syncwith the start of the Premier League."
EE, a joint venture between Orange and DeutscheTelekom, launched Britain's first 4G network inOctober after regulators allowed it to re-use its existingairwaves.
It has sold its service on speed, and it offers a 24-30megabits-per-second (Mbps) service in 15 cities, and a standard12-15 Mbps services in a further 80 towns and cities. It hadsigned up 687,000 customers by end-June, which it said put it ontrack for 1 million by the end of the year.
Laurence said Vodafone did not have a public target forcustomer numbers, but he was confident that its focus onentertainment would attract customers from competing networks aswell as rewarding loyal Vodafone subscribers.
