Fast Facts

Our Company

  • Telstra is Australia's leading telecommunications and information services company, with one of the best known brands in the country.
  • We offer a full range of products and services and compete in all telecommunications markets throughout Australia, providing 9.8 million fixed line services and 9.2 million mobile services.
  • We are Australia’s 3G market leader, with over 2 million 3G customers – including 1 million experiencing the superior coverage, speed, content, applications and services of the Next G™ network
  • In the financial year ended 30 June, 2007 sales revenue was A$23.7 billion and underlying EBIT A$5.8 billion.
  • We are one of Australia's top 10 listed companies, and we are a Fortune 500 company
  • Telstra won “Next Generation Network Service Provider of the Year” Award at the Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards in June 2007
  • Telstra won the Innovation Mobility Award for our Next G™ network rollout at the 2007 ACOMMS Awards.
  • We aim to be the partner of choice in the Asia Pacific region; we are the second largest full service provider in New Zealand and the leading mobile operator in Hong Kong.
  • We have a controlling stake in China's leading real estate and home furnishing web site, SouFun.

Our Service

  • We have more than 11,000 telephone exchanges.
  • On average, we install around 12,000 services every day.
  • In the financial year to 30 June 2007 we handled:
    • 6.5 billion local calls
    • 7.1 billion national long distance minutes
    • 4.7 billion fixed to mobile minutes
    • 4.9 billion SMS messages.
  • Telstra owns and operates approximately 25,000 payphones.
  • We have installed over 218 Teletypewriter (TTY) payphones, which enable people who are deaf or have a communication impairment to stay in touch when out and about.
  • Around 99 per cent of Telstra's payphones are now SMS enabled nationally.
  • It costs 40 times more to install new phone services in remote areas than the city. With our low population density, 25 per cent of service funds are spent on 5 per cent of customers.
  • Telstra's billing system manages more than 95 million bills every year.
  • We provide a comprehensive range of billing and payment options for our customers:
    • Single Bill - one monthly bill for all eligible services (fixed, mobile, selected BigPond® internet and Telstra Pay TV subscription)
    • Monthly billing and Quarterly billing on fixed line only accounts
    • Online Bill - view, manage and pay your Telstra bills online - see a full breakdown of calls and charges
    • Paperless billing via Online Bill - uses no paper whatsoever - an email is sent to you when your bill is ready for viewing
    • Paper Bill - provides a breakdown of your charges and billing details, without the call itemisation
    • Detailed Paper Bill - provides timed call itemisation
    • Braille and large print bills.
  • We also offer convenient, time saving payment options including:
    • Telstra EasyPay - set and forget or pay your bill when you choose
    • BPay® - pay via your bank's website or on the phone
    • online and by phone
    • in person at a Telstra Shop or Australia Post
    • by mail
    • Pre-Paid.
  • The percentage of faults repaired on time has climbed from as low as 58 per cent in 1998 to an average of 93 per cent today.
  • Telstra has a specialist Hardship Assistance Team to provide support and assistance to customers experiencing difficulty in paying their telephone account due to a change in their circumstances.
  • Telstra's Access for Everyone package, valued at over $200 million per year, provides support to over 1.5 million Australians who are experiencing financial hardship each year.
  • The Access for Everyone package provides monthly discounts to over 1.4 million eligible pensioners.
  • MessageBox services to homeless and transient people available through more than 680 community agencies.
  • Assisting over 3,000 Telstra home phone customers per month through Telstra Bill Assistance certificates, distributed by community agencies.
  • An InContact® telephone service for over 87,000 people who cannot afford a full home phone service.
  • Sponsored Access services for nearly 1,000 crisis and emergency accommodation centres so residents can be reached via telephone.
  • Phonecard Assistance from participating community agencies for people facing financial difficulty and who use Telstra payphones to manage their communication needs.

Mobile

  • In 2006-07 there were 9.2 million Telstra mobile customers in Australia.
  • 85 per cent of mobile phone users in Australia use SMS.
  • Australians send the most text messages on New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, Valentine’s Day and St Patrick’s Day.
  • Friday is the most popular day to send a text message.
  • The busiest time for text messaging is between 7.00pm and 8.00pm.
  • The current speed record for typing a 160-character SMS message is 43.2 seconds - without the help of predictive text. That’s 3.7 characters typed per second - we presume the person was using both hands! (Guinness World Records 2005)

Recycling

  • 42 per cent of Australians keep their old mobile phones – even if they don’t work
  • A further 18 per cent give their old phone to a family member or friend 
  • 9 per cent throw it away 
  • 4 per cent recycle

Please drop your old mobile phones into the nearest Telstra Shop for recycling!

(Source: AMTA website http://www.amta.org.au)

000 Facts

  • In the 2006-07 financial year, Telstra's 000 service operators answered 11.5 million calls. On average, that's almost 31,000 calls a day.
  • Around 60 per cent of these calls were made from mobile phones.
  • Sadly, approximately 60 per cent of the total calls received were misdials, nuisance calls or fax and modem calls, placing an enormous unnecessary burden on this vital service.
  • 97 per cent of all calls to the 000 service were answered by Telstra operators within five seconds and 99 per cent of all calls were answered within ten seconds.

Sensis

  • We are the main provider of directory information services in Australia through our wholly owned subsidiary, Sensis.
  • Over 98% of Australian metropolitan households receive the Yellow™ and WhitePages® print directories each year.
  • We delivered approximately 23.2 million WhitePages® and Yellow™ directories in 2005-06.

Fixed Network Services

  • We have over 4.5 million km of telecommunications fibre - equivalent to more than 100 times the Earth's circumference.
  • There are 9.8 million fixed access lines in operation (end June 2007) .
    • Around 5.5 million of these are residential lines.
    • Around 2.3 million are business lines.
    • Around 2 million are wholesale lines provided to wholesale customers.
  • We have around 1.2 million ISDN lines in service.
  • We offer international calls to 230 countries and territories.
  • The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) has over 300 digital switching nodes, connected to 10,000 access sites and then a range of copper wire, optic fibre, radio and satellite links can combine for end-to-end connections for our customers.

Data Network Services

  • Telstra's next-generation network is delivering new, better and faster services to tens of thousands of customers.
  • The new wireline IP core network, Telstra Next IP™ network:
    • Offers seventy-seven times the platform capacity of the old network
    • provides users with more reliable and stable media and telephony services and expands dramatically the number and range of services any individual customer can use.
  • In upgraded areas, residential customers are 'network-ready' for new multimedia applications when higher speed services become available.
  • Telstra is beginning to deploy advanced services to upgraded business customers including IP telephony and conferencing, IP-based call centres, reliable higher-speed broadband, web-hosting and security services.
  • The new network is permitting Telstra to move more swiftly to satisfy customer demand and the fast-growing market for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) - private communications networks used by businesses to communicate securely over a public network - to connect organisations and enterprises to the internet is experiencing immediate benefits.
  • In the past year the time taken to order new VPNs has come down by 75 per cent - from 55 minutes to 15 minutes, on average - while delivery times are down at least 20 per cent, from five weeks to four weeks, on average.

Our Sponsorships

  • As at February 2008 our sport sponsorships include:
    • Australian Football League
    • National Rugby League
    • Football Federation Australia
    • Swimming Australia
    • V8 Supercars, sponsored by BigPond 
    • Australian Paralympic Committee 
    • Australian Olympic Committee 
  • As at February 2008 we support the arts through:
    • The Australian Ballet
    • Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA)
    • Tamworth Country Music Festival, presented by Telstra 
    • The Telstra Road to Tamworth
    • The Sydney Symphony Orchestra
    • The Australian Chamber Orchestra
    • The Sydney Film Festival
    • Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts 2008, sponsored by BigPond 
  • As at February 2008 our community sponsorships include:
    • Surf Life Saving Australia
      • Telstra Child Flight   
      • Sydney Children's Hospital Foundation, sponsored by BigPond  
      • World Youth Day 2008
  • As at February 2007 our environmental sponsorships include:
    • Banksia Environmental Awards
    • WWF Australia
  • As at February 2008, we support business and women in business through the Telstra Business Awards and Telstra Business Women’s Awards. 
  • As at February 2008, Telstra is a telecommunications consultant for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Organising Committee.
  • In 2002, we acquired the naming rights to one of the country's most prestigious and technologically advanced sporting and entertainment venues - Telstra Dome.

Our Community Investment

  • Telstra is working with a number of community organisations to develop initiatives which will provide real benefit to the communities of which we are a part through the application of our human and technology resources, products and services. Our Community Business Partnerships are aimed at reducing social and geographic isolation and promoting social inclusion, particularly in the areas of telework, telehealth and tele-education.
  • As at  January 2008 we are working with the:
    • The National Stroke Foundation
    • On Track @ Peter Mac.  
    • Murdoch Childrens Research Institute
    • Cavill+Co 
  • Telstra has an ongoing commitment to assisting communities in times of natural and civil disaster. We offer relief packages, using our products and services, to affected customers which is in addition to our efforts to quickly and efficiently restore our telecommunications network. In  2006-07  Telstra provided relief packages domestically to customers and communities who were affected by:
    •  Storms and floods in 
      • Central Coast NSW,
      • Gippsland Victoria,
      • North Coast NSW,
      • South East Coast Queensland
      • Charleville,Queensland
      • Emerald, Queensland
    • Bush fires in Perth
  • Telstra aslo commisioned the Climate Risk Group to undertake research into the
  • Telstra Foundation was established in 2002. The program is devoted to enriching the lives of Australian children, young people and the communities in which they live. The Telstra Foundation has committed approximately $20 million to 3,281 organisations through its two programs:
    • Community Development Fund for charitable organisations working to improve the health, well being and life chances of Australia's children and young people
    • Telstra's Kids Fund provides one off grants of $1,200 to support a project or activity run by a not-for-profit organisation involving a child in the immediate family of permanent Telstra Group employees and its wholly owned and controlled subsidiaries. Through the Telstra's Kids Fund, the Telstra Foundation values Telstra employees and strengthens local communities by encouraging the active participation of children and young people.
  • Telstra is also involved in a range of broader community initiatives to help promote accessibility for people with a disability:
    • we are a principal sponsor of Link magazine, which examines issues from a disability perspective
    • Better Hearing Australian - our major sponsorship of and product/service display at the 2006 BHA National Conference in September enabled us to feature products and services suitable for this sector
    • 'Don't DISmy ABILITY' campaign - we are delighted to partner with the NSW Government and NSW Disability Community for the third year as Principal sponsor of this NSW-wide celebration of International Day of People with a Disability (held 3rd December 2006). The campaign challenged attitudes and stereotypes and promoted diversity as a stimulator of creativity and a driver of opportunities for this sector.
  • We support the business community through Telstra Business Women's Awards (TBWA) now in its 12th year and the Telstra Business Awards, now in its 14th year.

The Environment

  • Telstra has published a Public Environment report since 2000 as a part of our commitment to the environment. These environment reports give information on Telstra's position and performance with regard to the environment. Key environmental reports produced in the 2006-07 fiscal year include:
  • Telstra  commenced the development of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (www.telstra.com.au) models to quantitatively demonstrate the environmental benefits of Telstra products and services, such as reduced travel. The first LCA's were for teleworking (working at home or away from the office), online billing and a Telstra retail shop.  These were undertaken to determine the net environmental benefit of our products in a scientific and rigorous way.
  • During 2006/07, Greenfleet planted 180,567 trees on our behalf, offsetting 48,391 tonnes CO2 equivalent – enough to fill the MCG 89 times over.  This more than doubled from 2005/06 when Greenfleet planted 89,254 trees on our behalf.
  • Telstra has been a major sponsor of the Banksia Environment Awards, the premier environmental awards in Australia, for 15 years. This year we sponsored a new category “People’s Choice Awards” (www.banksiafdn.com)
  • Telstra has continued its participation in the voluntary Greenhouse Challenge Plus program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2006-07 we saved 43,944 GJ of energy, or 13,182 tonnes CO2 equivalent. This is equal to the greenhouse gas emissions from approximately 1,425 average Australian homes for an entire year.
  • Telstra's use of electricity and gas for lighting, heating and air conditioning in office and network buildings and electricity to operate the network, accounts for approximately 89 per cent of Telstra's greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, Telstra saved $1.2 million on electricity costs through our energy management programs.
  • During 2006-07 we had greenhouse gas emissions of 1,390,306 tonnes CO2 equivalent
  • Telstra is one of Australia's largest users of solar power, with 10,639 solar powered sites including exchanges, radio terminals, small repeater stations and payphones.
  • Through our Green Office Program we have:
    • increased recycling rates for bottles, cans and milk cartons from 314 tonnes in 2005-06 to 338 tonnes in 2006-07
    • office paper consumption is down from 7.4 reams per person to 7.2 reams per person
  • During 2005-06 we recycled approximately 15 megalitres of water from our pits. This year we recycled 16 megalitres of water.
  • For more information  on Telstra’s environmental performance, visit our Environment page (www.telstra.com.au)

Our Innovations

  • Our transformed R&D model will leverage the global strength of our strategic partners and shape our R&D in order to ensure that future technology offerings are of the highest quality and our services can be integrated efficiently to offer new value to our customers.
  • In August 2006, Telstra unveiled its $50 million state-of-the-art Telstra Integration Laboratory to test a new Internet Protocol (IP) network that will deliver leading-edge services to 5.3 million Telstra customers over the next five years.
  • This new laboratory is a key part of Telstra's strategic partnership with global suppliers to accelerate the rollout of the new IP network. It will conduct end-to-end testing of the IP network and associated new products, enabling their smooth integration into Telstra's network.
  • Telstra's global partners - Alcatel, Cisco, Juniper, Tellabs and Ericsson - all have equipment and teams on site at the laboratory to replicate the new IP network, to test every element and fast track the rollout of new technology.
  • This Laboratory is one of a kind - it contains a unique combination of next generation equipment and technology, and on-site expertise from global partners to deliver the best outcomes for our customers.
  • The new IP network is made from fibre optic cable and will supplement the traditional PSTN core network.
  • It will deliver multiple services at lower costs and faster speeds, driving information over a fibre optic core network which will have seventy-seven times greater capacity.
  • In May 2006, Telstra announced that its Broadband eLab, based in Launceston, Tasmania would continue to operate beyond the close of the Launceston Broadband Project (LBP).
  • The LBP, a joint initiative between Telstra and the Federal Government, saw the Launceston community benefit with almost $5.2 million in rebates, with residents and businesses experiencing cutting edge technology solutions such as next generation Broadband.
  • It provided an opportunity to nurture a 'living lab' environment within the Launceston community, with around 4,000 customers participating in the program since it began in 1999.
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