Telstra

• Date founded: 1993
• Industry: Telecommunications
• Corporate headquarters: Melbourne, Australia
• Type: Public

Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company and Australia's largest telecommunications company by market share. The Telstra headquarters are located in Melbourne, Australia. Telstra's services within Australia include a nationwide telephone network and mobile and broadband services, and in the twenty-first century it increased its focus on international growth, including services in more than 230 countries and territories. As a part of this service delivery, Telstra provides subsea cable networks within the Asia-Pacific and data and Internet protocol (IP) networks to business and government customers. Key officers in the organisation include Chief Executive Officer Vicki Brady and Chief Financial Officer Michael Ackland.

History

In 1901, when the Commonwealth of Australia was formed as a dominion of the United Kingdom, the Postmaster-General's Department was formed to provide the postal, telephone and telegraph services for the country. Although telegraphs were the primary source of telecommunication at this time, throughout the following three decades trunk telephone lines were opened between Australia's main centres, including lines between Sydney and Melbourne, Melbourne and Adelaide, then between Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. Growth in telecommunications and the recognition of Australian independence in 1942 led to the Overseas Telecommunications Commission in 1946, but domestic telecommunications remained the domain of the Postmaster-General's Department until the 1970s.

The Telecommunications Act 1975 saw the Postmaster-General's Department split into two separate organisations: the Australian Postal Commission, which managed postal needs, and the Australian Telecommunications Commission (ATC), which took over the telecommunications branch. ATC later merged with the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, becoming the Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (AOTC) in 1992, trading under the Telecom and OTC brands. The following year, the AOTC was renamed Telstra, combining the Tel- of 'telecom' with the –stra of Australia.

Telstra was privatised in three stages, consisting of shares sold by the government in 1997, 1999 and 2006. The final stage, T3, was the largest and reduced government ownership of Telstra to 17 per cent of its shares, which were placed in the Future Fund in order to provide pensions for Australian government employees. Those remaining shares were sold off over the next five years. An attempt to allow the full sale of Telstra in 1998 had failed in the Senate, in part over concerns about a privately held company adequately providing for regional and rural telecommunications services. Subsequent negotiations eventually allowing the sale included funding for such services. In 2011, as part of efforts to address the high costs of broadband services, Telstra signed an agreement with the National Broadband Network Company, the government-owned corporation that operates the country's broadband network, that allowed Telstra to keep its retail and wholesale operations in the same corporation in return for leasing certain infrastructure to the NBN Co, avoiding marketing its mobile network as an NBN alternative for a certain period, and other considerations.

In late 2017, extreme weather resulted in thousands of Telstra fixed-line phone customers in Queensland losing phone service. After initial repair and restoration estimates, Telstra announced that some customers would remain without service for at least a month, with an estimate of February 2018 offered for full restoration. Because the storms were beyond the company's control rather than the service disruption being the result of infrastructure problems or equipment failure, the company also announced that it would not be offering compensation for the loss of service.

Also in 2017, Telstra made 'silent lines' free to all customers after a spike in the number of customers registered with the Do Not Call Registry, which prevents telemarketers from calling them. Previously costing about three dollars a month, a 'silent line' is a phone number that is not listed in print or online directories.

The company announced plans in 2021 to take back full ownership of its retail stores. Vita Group owned and operated 104 stores, while 166 were operated by individual licensees. Telstra believed the move would improve employee engagement and spark profitable growth. To keep up with technological advances, in 2023 Telstra acquired Versent, a cloud transformation and security service company, for US$267.5 million. In December 2024, the company acquired Boost Mobile for US$94 million. Boost had been a Telstra wholesale customer since 2012.

In 2024, Telstra chief executive officer Vicki Brady announced the layoff of 2,800 employees. The change was part of the company's transition to AI technology.

Impact

Telstra is one of the largest companies on the Australian Securities Exchange and, with over one million shareholders, is its most widely held company. It is one of the largest retail service providers for services using the National Broadband Network, and along with Optus and TPG controls 83 per cent of the market.

Telstra has been at the forefront of adopting online technologies, using online forums to supplement its customer service, offering smartphone and Facebook apps for account management, using the Twitter program Periscope for customer service, and accepting PayPal for bill payment. I

Telstra operates 280 retail stores in Australia, including its flagship Discovery stores, which are designed according to local needs. It owns and operates most of the public telephones in Australia, though many were removed in the 2000s as mobile telephone ownership became more widespread. In 2022, Telstra allowed customers to use the remaining public phones for free to make local and national calls and calls to its mobile phones. Telstra is the country's largest mobile service provider as well as operating the mobile network with the greatest coverage. By 2024, it had sold its pay television provider Foxtel to a sports streaming company for US$2.1 billion.

Bibliography

"About." Telstra, 2017, www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/our-company/past. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

Collier, Karen. "Telstra to End Unpopular Fare." Herald Sun, January 8, 2018, www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/telstra-to-end-unpopular-fee/news-story/f1c85ea3ac42af9239e8d74dd23eb092. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

Letts, Stephen. "Telstra Shares Slump as Profit Tumbles, Dividend Slashed." ABC News, 17 Aug. 2017, www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-17/telstra-result/8815342.

O'Leary, Graham. "Economics, Commerce and Industrial Relations." Parliament of Australia, 2003, parlinfo.aph.gov.au. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

Taylor, John. "Telstra Reports $1.8bn Profit, a 13% Drop, As Price Rises Loom for Mobile Customers." The Guardian, 15 Aug. 2024, www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/15/telstra-profits-drop-financial-year-results-2024. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.

"Telstra Annual Business Report." Telstra, 2015, telstra2015ar.interactiveinvestorreports.com/about-telstra/our-business. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

"Telstra Corporation Limited." Reference for Business, www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/66/Telstra-Corporation-Limited.html. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

"Telstra Customers in Queensland Face a Month without Landline Service." The Courier-Mail, 7 Jan. 2018, www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/telstra-customers-in-queensland-face-a-month-without-landline-service/news-story/2f3563c699e314614e65310b210e44e6. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

"Why Melbourne: Top Companies That Call Melbourne Home: Leading Victorian Companies." Invest Victoria, 2017, www.invest.vic.gov.au/why-melbourne/top-companies-call-melbourne-home. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.