Telstra will plough an extra $500 million into its mobile network as it looks to keep ahead of rival Optus.
Telstra chief executive Andy Penn said the telco would lift expenditure on its network to $5 billion over three years to 2017.
"Our focus has always been to have the best network in Australia," he told a business lunch on Thursday.
"We've been investing at the billion dollar-plus level in our mobile network for a very very long time and its what we believe is the right level of investment to continue to expand out network."
The move may help fend off a push from rival Optus, which has flagged plans to significantly increase investment in its network.
Optus plans to spend more than $1.7 billion over the next year on its network in a bold effort to challenge Telstra's dominance of the mobile market.
In his first major address since ascending to the telco's top job, Mr Penn said Telstra would add another 750 new mobile base stations and expand its 4G coverage to 99 per cent of the population.
The company plans to spend 15 per cent of the value of its sales on its network over the next three years.
He said Telstra's investment program would enable it to cope with the explosion on video traffic linked to the arrival of streaming on demand networks like Netflix.
Mr Penn also reiterated the company's commitment to becoming a global technology company - an ambition developed under his predecessor David Thodey - with involvements in everything from eHealth to cloud data storage and machine to machine connections.
"Telstra is no longer simply a phone company - technology pervades everything we do," he said.
"Our vision, my vision, is that we now take this to the next level and become truly world class."
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