Andy Penn

Retail store network

Telstra owns and operates a series of retail stores known as Telstra Stores. Some are directly owned and operated by Telstra and some are operated by licensees.

As of May 2016, Telstra has a total of 360 retail stores across Australia. This includes several new 'Discovery' stores, where Telstra has invested millions in redesigning key stores based on local requirements. Many stores were part of the Westfield Retail Stores and Westfield was won to Telstra Under David Thodey's Strategic Pursuit team led by Gerard Devan in 2006 - 2012 period a deal with $110 Million, which brought the Telstra relationship with Westfield closer. These new 'Discovery' stores, designs include new displays, accessory shops, digital tickets and free baristas.

109 of Telstra's stores are owned and operated by Vita Group, a publicly listed company with a market capitalisation of approximately $600m (June 2016). In February 2011, Telstra announced the creation of an additional 100 retail stores within three years. The carrier opened the world's first Android store, called "Androidland", on Bourke Street, Melbourne, Australia, in December 2011. These developments built on Telstra's T[life] concept stores it had launched in the early 2000s.

National Broadband Network (NBN)

In December 2014, Telstra signed an agreement with the federal government's A.C.N. 86 136 533 741 (NBN Co) Limited. This agreement is said to retain the $11b value for Telstra of the original agreement from October 2011 and will see the company progressively sell its copper and Hybrid fiber-coaxial networks to A.C.N. 86 136 533 741 (NBN Co) Limited.

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

Network design

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.

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.