Last checked at 
LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) - Vodafone is to increasespending on its British network by 50 percent this year to morethan 900 million pounds ($1.36 billion) in readiness for thelaunch of 4G services, it said on Monday.
The company has already outbid its rivals in buying airwavesfor superfast mobile broadband, spending some 802 million poundsin the regulator Ofcom's auction of radio spectrum in February.
Operators in Britain, and the rest of Europe, are making abig bet on faster networks in the hope that increased dataconsumption will boost falling revenues.
Vodafone, which launched Spain's first 4G service last week,said it was spending more than 2.5 million pounds a day thisyear upgrading its British network. Services are due to startlater in the summer.
The additional spending this year will also go onintegrating the fixed line network in Britain which it acquiredthrough the acquisition of Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) lastyear.
It said in September that it would take 18 months to twoyears and cost about 500 million pounds to fix years of underinvestment in CWW's network and customer service.
EE, the leader in the British mobile market, started rollingout Britain's first 4G network last year. It attracted 318,000subscribers in the first five months.
