Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecommunications company by market share.
Telstra has a long history in Australia, originating together with Australia Post as the Postmaster-General's Department upon federation in 1901. Telstra had transitioned from a state-owned enterprise to a fully privatised company by 2006.
Contents
History
Australia's telecommunications services were originally controlled by the Postmaster-General's Department (PMG), formed in 1901 as a result of Australian Federation. Prior to 1901, telecommunications were administered by each colony. On 1 July 1975, separate commissions were established by statute to replace the PMG. Responsibility for postal services was transferred to the Australian Postal Commission (Australia Post). The Australian Telecommunications Commission, trading as Telecom Australia, ran domestic telecommunication services.
In 1989, the ATC introduced new buildings and frameworks. In 1993, the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, a separate government body established in 1946, was merged with the Australian Telecommunications Corporation into the short-lived Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (AOTC) which continued trading under the established identities of Telecom and OTC. The AOTC was renamed to Telstra Corporation Limited in April 1993.
Telstra has faced competition since the early 1990s from Optus (Australia's second largest communication company) and a number of smaller providers. Telstra once retained ownership of the fixed-line telephone network, but since the nationwide upgrade to the National Broadband Network (NBN), the Australian Government now has legal ownership of these lines since 2007, though Telstra has played a big part in this upgrade supplying resources to the Government on the new network.. In 2025, Telstra sold its remaining 35% stake in Australian media company Foxtel.
Overseas Telecommunications Commission
The Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) was established by an Act of Parliament in August 1946. It inherited facilities and resources from AWA and Cable & Wireless, and was charged with responsibility for all international telecommunications services into, through and out of Australia.
On 1 February 1992, it was merged with Telecom as the Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (AOTC). The new organisation underwent a corporate identity review and was subsequently renamed Telstra for international business in 1993 and domestic business in 1995.
Privatisation
Beginning in 1997 and finalising in 2011, the Federal Government began to privatise the corporation. The first three stages was initiated by the Howard government: the first, informally known as "T1" (with shares priced at $3.30), occurred in 1997. "T2" ($7.40) followed in 1999; "T3" ($3.60) in 2006.
In T1, the government sold one third of its shares in Telstra for $14 billion and publicly listed the company on the Australian Securities Exchange. In 1998, a further 16% of Telstra shares were sold to the public, leaving the Australian government with 51% ownership. In 2006, T3 was announced by the government and was the largest of the three public releases, reducing the government's ownership of Telstra to 17%. The 17% remainder of Telstra was placed in the Future Fund, a sovereign wealth fund established mainly to meet future liabilities for payment of superannuation to retired federal public servants.
In 2009, the Future Fund sold off another $2.4 billion worth of shares, reducing the government's stake in Telstra to 10.9%. In August 2011, under the Gillard government, the Future Fund sold its remaining "above market weight" Telstra shares, reducing its holding to 0.8% of the shares, effectively completing Telstra's privatisation.
With more than one million shareholders, Telstra is currently the most widely held ASX-listed company.
National Broadband Network
On 26 November 2008, Telstra submitted a non-complying tender issued by the federal government to build a National Broadband Network, a 12-page letter proposing a $5 billion broadband network covering between 80 and 90 percent of the Australian population in major cities, despite the tender requiring 98 percent coverage.
As a result, Telstra was removed from the National Broadband Network RFP process on 15 December 2008. In response, Telstra announced that it would raise speeds on its existing Next G network and HFC "cable" network so that they both offer higher speeds than the RFP for the NBN requires. Following Telstra's exclusion from the National Broadband Network bidding process Telstra's share price suffered the biggest one-day percentage fall in its history.
NBN Co Limited signed a definitive agreement with Telstra on 23 June 2011, estimated to be worth A$9 billion post-tax net present value, building upon the signing of a financial heads of agreement a year beforehand. Telstra agreed to "disconnect" its Internet customers from the copper and hybrid fibre-coaxial networks in areas where FTTP has been installed, and agreed to lease dark fibre, exchange space and ducts to NBN Co. As part of the agreement, Telstra would not be able to market their mobile network as an alternative to the NBN for a number of years. Telstra remains the owner of its networks. On 18 October 2011, Telstra shareholders overwhelmingly approved the deal.
On 14 December 2014 it was announced that in a A$11b renegotiated deal Telstra will transfer ownership of its copper and hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks to NBN while disconnecting premises from these networks. This ownership allows NBN Co to use these networks "where it sees fit in for its multi-technology NBN rollout."
Incidents
In January 2007 Telstra launched WotNext, a video-publishing website that allowed users to upload videos. The video content was then sold to mobile users for A$1, which the uploader and Telstra split equally. The website was shut down in December 2007 after a media backlash over uploaded semi-pornographic videos.
On 12 July 2011, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) released the findings of its investigation into a mailing list error that resulted in approximately 60,300 Telstra customers' personal information being sent to other customers. The Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said that the OAIC investigation confirmed that while Telstra breached the Privacy Act when the personal information of a number of its customers was disclosed to third parties, this incident was caused by a one-off human error. The OAIC concluded that Telstra had taken steps to protect the personal information of its customers including privacy obligations in agreements with mailing houses, privacy impact assessments, and procedures to ensure staff handle personal information appropriately during mail campaigns. After becoming aware of the mailing list error, the commissioner determined that Telstra had acted "immediately" to prevent further breaches, notify customers, review its data security practices, and counselling staff involved the accidental data leak.
On 4 May 2018, Telstra suffered a major outage impacting callers to 000 for several hours.
On 20 March 2019, Telstra blocked access to 4chan, 8chan, Zero Hedge, and Liveleak as a reaction to the Christchurch mosque shootings.
In May 2021, the Federal Court of Australia ordered the company to pay a $50 million fine for mistreating their Indigenous customers by encouraging them to sign up to plans they did not need or could not afford. In 2023, Telstra declared support for the Yes campaign in the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum, citing their "strong ties to Indigenous communities and employees".
While the 2025 Optus emergency calling outage was gaining significant media attention, Telstra also suffered an outage that lasted for 12 hours in the south west of Western Australia.
David Thodey era (2010–2015)
Under the leadership of David Thodey, Telstra embarked upon a transformation agenda to become more sales and service focused.
As part of that, an ambitious customer service agenda was defined. In 2014, Telstra was named "most respected company" by the Australian Financial Review newspaper.
Early in 2010, Telstra announced the creation of a $1 billion "fighting fund" to be used in a concerted effort to win back market share in key product categories. This effort seems to have paid off with strong sales momentum announced in February 2011.
As part of its new strategy, Telstra announced that its "goal is for customer service to be fundamental to everything we do". In August 2011, Telstra Digital announced expansion of customer service into social media with 24/7 coverage. By November 2012, Telstra claimed 140,000 live chats for the month and a growth rate of this service of 600% p.a. In October 2013, Telstra announced that it had grown its Live Chat workforce to 600 and its social media workforce to 30. Customer Service became a pillar of the corporation's social responsibility ethos according to Telstra's head of social services Gerard Devan and the Telstra foundation.
The following table shows total complaints handled by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) 2010–2015, and of those, the ones made against Telstra.
In February 2011, Telstra announced the formation of Telstra Digital under the leadership of Gerd Schenkel who was hired from National Australia Bank/UBank. Gerd reported to Karsten Wildberger who was Group Managing Director of Telstra Consumer, and was ultimately appointed to be the new minister for digitization of Germany in 2025.
Telstra Digital's initial purpose was to improve the use of digital channels for customer service. In April 2011, Telstra Digital relaunched its web homepage design. In July 2011, Telstra Digital launched "CrowdSupport", an online forum to crowd source customer service. As of July 2017, Telstra's "CrowdSupport" had 463,000 posts. It was also cited as an example of "scaling at the edge" by Deloitte's Centre for the Edge.
Andrew Penn era (2015–2022)
On 19 February 2015, Telstra announced that CEO David Thodey would retire on 1 May 2015 and be replaced by successor Andy Penn. Penn's era was marked by the very difficult transition to the NBN, a government policy decision which had significant implications for Telstra. Penn indicated new focus on growth in the core business with a pulling back from international markets, including the discontinuation of a joint venture to build a mobile phone network in the Philippines. On 14 March 2016, Telstra ended their talks between the company and the Philippine-based conglomerate San Miguel Corporation for a planned joint telecommunications venture in the Philippines due to several factors.
In 2016, Telstra suffered a series of network outages for which the company apologised. In December of that year, Telstra announced the appointment of Robyn Denholm as its new COO, following the departure of Kate McKenzie who left after the network outages. In December, Telstra announced the hire of a new CTO to replace the predecessor who left amongst allegations of CV fraud. In 2016, the government raised the possibility that Telstra's regional mobile network may be forced to be opened to competitor' use under a roaming scheme. A prospect strongly being fought by Telstra. Penn announced a $3bn investment program to strength its networks and as a platform for future digital investments.
In February 2017, Telstra announced that revenue had dropped 3.5%, Net Profit After Tax had dropped by over 14% due to the impact of the rollout of the NBN by the Australian Government. As a result, Telstra's share price dropped by 4.5% on the same day. In August 2017, Telstra announced that it would cut its dividend in response to the financial implications of the NBN and to fund its network investments, leading to a drop in share price by over 10% in a single day to reach a 5-year low.
In June 2018, Telstra announced its Telstra2022 strategy designed to face into headwinds from the NBN rollout and return the business to growth. Composed of four pillars, the strategy was designed to remove $1 billion of operating costs from the business, simplifying its overall structure and leading to six key outcomes: improve customer experiences, simplify its products and operating model, extend network superiority and 5G leadership, achieve global high performance in employee engagement, reduce net productivity costs, and attain a return on capital investment post the NBN rollout.
Vicki Brady era (2022–present)
On 30 March 2022, Telstra announced that Vicki Brady would become the new chief executive officer effective 1 September 2022. In December 2023, Telstra acquired Versent, a provider of cloud transformation and security products and services, for $267.5 million. On 1 February 2022, Telstra announced it would temporarily cease selling Foxtel from Telstra services to new customers. On 21 May 2024, Brady announced plans to lay off 2,800 employees by the end of 2024. Most of these roles would be in the B2B Telstra Enterprise division, with 377 roles in consultancy for redundancy. Brady said the changes were part of the company's transition towards AI technology. Communication Workers Union national assistant secretary James Perkins criticised the lack of staff warning prior to the announcement. In December 2024, Telstra announced it would acquire Boost Mobile, an MVNO which operates on its mobile network. On 23 December 2024, Telstra announced it would sell the remaining 35% holding of the Foxtel Group to DAZN for a $135m and gaining a 3% shareholding in DAZN.
Products and services
Fixed-line and mobile telephony
Telstra is Australia's incumbent and largest provider of fixed-line services. These include home phone, business and other PSTN products.
Telstra outsources a significant portion of network installation and maintenance to private contractors and joint ventures, such as ABB Communications and STCJV (Siemens Thiess Communications Joint Venture).
Telstra also owns and maintains the majority of Australia's public telephones. In 2006, Telstra announced it would remove many of the phones, citing vandalism and the increasing adoption of mobile telephones. Telstra's support page has a payphones section where information about their plans to add, remove, or move payphones can be found.
Telstra Mobile is Australia's largest mobile telephone service providers, in terms of both subscriptions and coverage. Telstra operates Australia's largest GSM and 3G UMTS (branded as Next G) mobile telephony networks in Australia, as well as holding a 50% stake in the 3GIS Ltd 2100 MHz UMTS network infrastructure, shared with Hutchison (Three). In September 2007, Telstra had an estimated 9.3M mobile subscribers. Telstra Mobile services are available in post-paid and prepaid payment types, known as Telstra Pre-Paid (formerly communic8 Pre-Paid).
Telstra's GSM network was the first digital mobile network in Australia. It was launched in April 1993 on the 900 MHz band as "Telstra MobileNet Digital". The GSM network has carried the majority of Telstra's mobile subscribers for the last 10 years and has seen numerous upgrades. 1800 MHz capacity channels were added to the network in the late 1990s as well as GPRS packet data transmission capabilities. As part of the UMTS Next G deployment, the GSM network was also upgraded to a full EDGE data transmission capability in 2006 providing data transmission capabilities greater than 40 kbit/s on its GSM network.
In 1981, Telstra (then Telecom Australia) was the first company to provide mobile telephony services in Australia. The first automated mobile service operated in the major capital cities on 500 MHz using the '007' dialling prefix. This network only provided "car phone" capabilities to subscribers as portable hand-held terminals were not practical at that time. The first cellular system in Australia offering portable hand-held phones was launched by Telstra in 1987 using the AMPS analogue standard on the 800 MHz band. This network at its peak had over 1 million subscribers, but was mandated by the government to be closed down by 2000, partially due to privacy concerns which resulted from the AMPS technology, but also because of arrangements undertaken to secure sufficient interest in the GSM network licenses offered in 1992 to competitors. A license condition placed on Telstra to maintain an equivalent coverage footprint at the time resulted in Telstra deciding to deploy an IS-95 CDMA network in its place.
Internet
Telstra Wholesale provides products such as Data, Mobile, Voice, and other Facilities (including Co-location and Duct Access) to other companies and organisations for re-sale. Telstra Wholesale also provides operational support for its customers, and facilities for international customers such as International Data Transport and IP Transport.
Due to Telstra's position as Australia's incumbent telecommunications provider, Telstra Wholesale is the incumbent and dominant wholesaler of ADSL services to other Internet Service Providers. Telstra installed the first DSLAMs in exchanges prior to 2000, and began wholesaling access in late 2000. Telstra Wholesale has a comprehensive network of ADSL DSLAMs (the largest in Australia) and allows competitors access to each Telstra DSLAM at up to ADSL2+ speeds if available, and at ADSL1 speeds should 2+ be unavailable. Telstra Wholesale customer Optus Communications loss of Westfield to Telstra Enterprise under David Thodey's strategic pursuit team led by Gerard Devan was a landmark loss to the Wholesale operation in the 2006 - 2012 period.
Since 2013, Telstra has wholesaled their 4G and 5G networks including mmWave. Telstra stopped wholesaling their 3G network in October 2024 as a result of the 3G shutdown. However, the wholesale product only provides access to over 10,000 of Telstra's 11,767 mobile sites as of early 2025.
As an internet service provider (ISP), Telstra provides internet services for personal and business clients. Telstra uses various delivery methods for its internet products via BigPond (now Telstra Media), including ADSL, Cable Internet, Dialup, Satellite, and Wireless Internet (through the Next G network)).
At the end of the 2007 financial year, BigPond had over two million broadband subscribers. In 2007 a survey of 14,000 people by PC Authority magazine found BigPond users rated poorly for customer service, and less than a third considered their service value for money. However, BigPond argued that the survey's structure had encouraged people to provide extreme opinions. In January 2009, Telstra was ranked as the top Australian ISP in terms of performance by Epitiro.
Telstra is Australia's largest provider of Cable Internet access, which covers parts of Australia's main cities (Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and the Gold Coast). Speeds available are 'Turbo' (8 Mbit/s downstream, 128 kbit/s upstream), 'Elite' (30 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up) and 'Ultimate' (100 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up).
Low-cost mobile and internet brand
In October 2013 Telstra launched "Belong", a low-cost mobile and internet service provider. As of February 2020, Belong has over 600,000 services made up of almost 340,000 mobile services and around 300,000 broadband internet services. Belong is Australia's first carbon neutral telecommunications provider certified by Climate Active, a partnership between the Australian Government and businesses that encourages voluntary action to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Subscription television
In 1995 Telstra in a joint venture with News Corp Australia launched a Foxtel a Subscription TV service that used Telstra's former hybrid fiber-coaxial (commonly referred to as "cable") network. In 2018 Telstra's 50% shareholding of Foxtel was reduced to 35% when Fox Sports Australia merged with Foxtel.
In February 2024 Telstra announced it would Telstra will temporarily stop selling Foxtel from Telstra until further notice, but would continue to support existing customers.
On 23 December 2024 Telstra announced that it would sell its 35% shareholding of the Foxtel for $135 million and a 3% shareholding of DAZN.
Entertainment and content
MOG, a subscription online music service and blog network, announced a partnership with Telstra offer their product in Australia – the first region outside of the United States to have access. Telstra and MOG launched under the BigPond Music branding on 21 June 2012,
GameArena was a website dedicated to video gaming operating under the BigPond brand that was managed by Mammoth Media and based on the east coast of Australia. The site provided news, downloads and servers primarily for the PC, and Mac, though it later branched out to include console sites. GameArena provided an online game shop GameNow, which sported various benefits to Telstra customers.
Usage of the GameArena file library, gaming servers and booking service were freely available to anyone, but provided specific advantages to Telstra customers such as preference in downloads and unmetered usage, as well as various bonuses in competitions. In 2005, GameArena went through a new shift with the merging of GameNow and Gameshop into itself. The name became simply BigPond GameArena.
GameArena once operated over 100 gaming servers, which were monitored by a volunteer force of administrators, known as GameOps. GameCreate was a service offered free of charge where users may book a server for a specific game for a 2-hour period of time. This server was private and could be used for either ladder training or social events.
GameArena servers and its website closed on 20 October 2014.
Telstra BigPond owned and operated a number of virtual islands in the online game Second Life for approximately three years. BigPond closed its Second Life presence in December 2009.
In 2011, Telstra launched "Blurtl", a Facebook application that allows the user to leave audio messages on their Facebook walls.
In 2021, Telstra made its pay phones free so that they can be used in emergencies for when mobile phones are out of service due to fire, flood, storms, flat batteries, no nearby mobile tower, etc. declining use would have meant that the cost of collection exceeded the revenue for the benefit of people without a mobile phone.
Mobile networks
The following is a list of known active mobile networks used by Telstra:
February 2011: Ericsson wins the LTE contract with Telstra. The LTE network is being deployed in capital city CBDs and select regional centres throughout 2011. It will operate at 1800 MHz and integrate with a HSPA+ service at 850 MHz. A dual mode (LTE/HSPA+) mobile broadband device has been developed for the network.
January 2012: Initial major LTE rollout complete. Incremental rollout continues, widening the coverage in capital cities and introducing new LTE coverage to regional centres. July 2012: Telstra commences retailing a pocket-sized battery powered 4G Wi-Fi router (ZTE MF91) for prepaid data customers, locked to Telstra, complementing its range of 4G-capable devices. Apart from the ZTE MF91, the Telstra 4G hardware range now comprises two dual mode (4G/3G) voice-capable handsets by HTC and ZTE (available for purchase outright or on a post-paid plan), a Sierra USB wireless modem (outright or post-paid plan), a ZTE USB wireless modem (prepaid, locked to Telstra) and a Sierra 4G Wi-Fi battery powered pocket-sized router (outright or post-paid plan). Telstra is reported to now be operating LTE facilities from more than 3,500 transmission sites.
August 2013: Telstra demonstrates the world's first ever LTE- Advanced Carrier Aggregation network using the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum bands in the Sunshine Coast. April 2014: Telstra introduced a mobile broadband device from Huawei (E5786) with LTE Advanced capability. May 2014: Telstra and Ericsson demonstrate world first 450 Mbit/s LTE-A downlink speeds in a commercial network with a Category 9 device. September 2015: Telstra, in collaboration with NETGEAR, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies announce that it is bringing the world's first 4G LTE Advanced 600 Mbit/s Category 11 device to customers.
September 2016: Telstra conducts the first live 5G trial in Australia with Ericsson, demonstrating 5G capabilities in a real world environment, including speed and beam steering tests. December 2016: Telstra shuts down the 900 MHz GSM/EDGE network on 1 December. Prior to this, EDGE data capabilities were available on 100% of the GSM networks used. January 2017: Telstra launches world's first Gigabit LTE-Advanced mobile network. March 2019: Telstra closed the 2100 MHz (Band 1) section of its 3G network on 25 March.
Next G network
In 2005, Telstra announced a plan to upgrade its ageing networks and systems; which includes a new 3G network to replace the then current CDMA mobile network.
The network was built between November 2005 and September 2006, and launched in October 2006. As of 2007, Next G was the largest mobile network in Australia, providing greater coverage than other 3G providers in Australia and over three times greater than any 2G provider in Australia. In December 2008, the Next G Network was also the fastest mobile network in the World, delivering theoretical network speeds of up to 21 Mbit/s using features of HSPA+ and Dual-Carrier HSPA+. In February 2010, Telstra increased the speed up to 42 Mbit/s making the Next G Network once again the fastest mobile network in the world.
On 26 September 2011, Telstra launched its 4G 1800 MHz LTE network, claiming typical download speeds of up to 40 Mbit/s. The network is currently used for Telstra's wireless broadband service and Telstra Mobile, which is Australia's largest mobile telephone service provider, in terms of both subscriptions and coverage
It was built to replace Telstra's CDMA network which operated from 1999 until 28 April 2008. Telstra opted to use the 850 MHz band for Next G in preference to the more common 2100 MHz band, since it requires fewer base stations to provide coverage, providing a lower capital cost. This network was implemented under contract by Ericsson as part of a project internally dubbed "Project Jersey" and launched on 6 October 2006. HSPA technology was included in the network to provide Australia's first wide area wireless broadband network. The efficiency of the Next G network and its coverage has been challenged and scrutinised since its launch, requiring Telstra to go back to areas with average coverage, particularly rural towns to improve its coverage footprint. On 18 January 2008, Stephen Conroy, Minister for Communications, declined the proposal for Telstra to switch off its CDMA network on 28 January 2008, stating that whilst the Next G network provided coverage equal to or better than the CDMA network, the range of handsets available was not yet satisfactory. On 15 April 2008, the Minister gave approval to close the CDMA network after 28 April 2008. Telstra closed the network nationally during the early morning hours of 29 April 2008.
While most wireless modems offered by Telstra allow peak download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbit/s, a modem by Sierra Wireless was announced in 2009 that supported increased throughput. The "USB 306" is marketed and sold by Telstra as the "Telstra Turbo 21 Modem", and was available in limited quantity in early 2009. By April, the "Turbo 21" was available to customers and offered peak download speeds of 21 Mbit/s, although actual speeds vary between 550 kbit/s and 8 Mbit/s. As of June 2009, Next G network HSUPA upgrades in selected regional and metropolitan areas, combined with software updates for the "Turbo 21" modem, will allow peak uplink speeds of up to 5.76 Mbit/s.
4GX
On 1 January 2015, Telstra launched, what it calls "4GX": a 700 MHz based component of its mobile network claiming speeds of up to 75 Mbit/s with compatible devices. 4GX has been expanded up to a 5 x Carrier Aggregation LTE Advanced Pro network, with up to two gigabits of capacity in selected locations using 700, 1800, 2100 and 2600 MHz frequencies.
Business Technology Services (BTS)
In January 2016, Telstra announced its acquisition of cloud service provider Kloud. This was followed closely by the acquisition of application development company Readify in July 2016.
Market position
Since the Australian telecommunications industry was deregulated in the early 1990s, Telstra has managed to remain the largest provider of telecommunications services despite the emergence of rivals Optus and TPG Telecom. A Harvard Business Review article from 2005 authored by a consultant to Telstra on this topic, reported "that a strategy of offering lower rates on some routes and at certain times of day, even though its prices, on average, were higher than its rivals", helped Telstra retain several points of market share it otherwise may have lost.
In early 2011, Telstra successfully extended its market share lead by discounting its mobile phone products. Also in 2011 it won Westfield Globally to Telstra within Enterprise by sales director Gerard Bevan value $110 million.
By 2020, Telstra's revenue was $26.2 billion, Optus' was $9.0 billion, and TPG Telecom's was $4.4 billion.
Advertising
The name "Telstra" is derived from "Telecom Australia". The corporation then traded under the "Telstra" brand internationally and "Telecom Australia" domestically until uniform branding of "Telstra" was introduced throughout the entire organisation in 1995, following an unsuccessful attempt to register the trademark "Telecom Australia".
In October 2011, Telstra launched a new brand identity and colour scheme. The new identity launched with the slogan "It's how we connect", and features the "T" from the previous logo in a variety of colors. This was followed by a "brand refresh" in February 2014 and again in 2016. In 2013, Telstra was assessed as Australia's third most valuable brand, after Woolworths and BHP Billiton. In 2016 Telstra became Australia's most valuable brand, which it maintained in 2017.
Telstra sponsors numerous awards around Australia, including the Australian Business of the Year award, the MYOB Small Business Award, and the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) which has become known as the Telstra Award. Notable past winners include Vaxine, APS Plastics, and eWAY. Telstra also set up a social services CEO round table under Gerard Devan which acted as a "Think Tank" to the sector.
Telstra was a major sponsor of the V8 Supercars car racing championship through its BigPond brand and directly sponsored the Sydney Telstra 500 event, the final round of the series held at Sydney Olympic Park. The sport ended this deal at the conclusion of the 2012 season.
Telstra had naming rights to the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne from 2002 until 2009. Telstra is also the naming rights sponsor of the National Rugby League Premiership. Telstra is also the principal sponsor of Swimming Australia. They also sponsored the Minardi team for the 2002 Formula One season, and the Rally Australia 2006 Championships.
Telstra also had the naming rights (under TelstraClear) for the TelstraClear Pacific events centre in Manukau City, New Zealand.
In September 2021 Telstra solutions and Telstra Purple announced a partnership with eVTOL racing series Airspeeder. The deal centred around providing a service to transmit terabytes of data for vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communications for the EXA series. This deal incorporated on-vehicle branding for Telstra.
International holdings
Telstra has over 200 subsidiary businesses as of 30 June 2016. The full list can be found at their website.
A list of major businesses that Telstra owns can be found here under: