Deutsche Telekom cash boost for One 2 One

European telecoms company Deutsche Telekom will invest £600m in upgrading the network of its UK mobile operator One 2 One.

The German telco, which bought One 2 One for £8.4bn in August last year, will invest the money into improving the operator's national coverage.

One 2 One is considered to have one of the weakest coverage of the incumbent mobile phone operators. It said its priority will be to ensure "highly robust and capacity-rich coverage inside buildings".

The operator said it will also invest money into building up its network in the areas most used by current and future customers, such as motorways, railways and out of town shopping centres.

Kai-Uwe Ricke, One 2 One's chief executive, said: "One 2 One's network performance is already strong, but we are determined to ensure it remains that way and that our coverage inside buildings is considerably developed in the coming months, ahead of the launch of services via general packet radio services [GPRS] this autumn."

One 2 One recently signed up Cambridge-based startup ip.access to supply an in-building base station. The station is designed to improve the quality of in-building mobile phone coverage by using internet protocol to stream voice and data.

Last month One 2 One secured a licence in the UK's third generation (3G) mobile phone auction. 3G mobile networks enable high-bandwidth wireless transmissions for services such as video, audio and streaming data on the move.