Vodafone plans sports and music offering in bid to secure 4G customers - Financial Times

Vodafone will bet on the attractions of content such as music and sports to win customers in the growing battle for the UK's nascent 4G market. The British company is the third mobile operator to reveal plans to launch 4G services in the UK, which will be introduced first in London at the end of August and in another 11 cities by the end of the year. Vodafone said on Wednesday that it was bundling either Premier League football or free music into its 4G offers, as well as unlimited calls and texts. These offers are made possible by content deals it struck earlier with Sky Sports and Spotify. The strategy, according to IHS analyst Ian Fogg, showed how hard it was for operators to differentiate service by speed alone, which is the basic difference between existing 3G services. Guy Laurence, chief executive of Vodafone UK, said that Vodafone's 4G proposition was "all about entertainment" and would be "very different from our competitors". "With 4G, speed is just the start: it's what you do with it that really matters," he said. EE has established a significant lead in the 4G market with almost 700,000 customers, having launched with an effective monopoly on superfast mobile services last autumn. The group also offers music and movies over its network, although it has emphasised content deals less, with a focus instead on the faster speeds available and extent of its nationwide coverage. O2, which shares a network with Vodafone, will also launch rival 4G services on August 29. The group has also promised 12 months of free music content for its 4G users, although O2 has not given any other details about how this music will be sourced. Tariffs on Vodafone will begin from £26 a month, which appear in-line with those being offered by O2 but also include the music or sports packages. This is more expensive than the basic SIM-only tariff offered by EE. Vodafone will be able to show more than 150 hours of Premier League football or more than 20m songs following content deals with Spotify and Sky. The tariffs come with unlimited UK data for the first three months, which will let customers experience the full 4G service that offers high data speeds but also potential high data costs, as well as unlimited talk and text. Vodafone said that speeds on its 4G network will typically be six times faster than standard 3G service, meaning that mobile users can watch video or play games online at speeds in excess of the average home broadband connection. Vodafone will bring indoor 4G coverage to 98 per cent of the UK population by 2015. Vodafone acquired the widest portfolio of mobile spectrum in the recent 4G auction for £802m, including allocations of the low-frequency spectrum that is best able to carry 4G signals. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFyUr8HkOA819ZXdw75uR2Y3oNQnw&url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1b557fb4-ff6d-11e2-8f25-00144feab7de.html

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