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Telstra facts

  • Story Highlights
  • Telstra began life in 1901 as part of the Postmaster-General's Department
  • The company installs an average of 12,000 services per day
  • Telstra is one of Australia's top 10 listed companies, a Fortune 500 company
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(CNN) -- Telstra is Australia's leading telecommunications and information services company, with customers throughout the country.

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The company began life as part of the Postmaster-General's Department, established in Australia in 1901, to deal with domestic telephone, telegraph and postal services.

After several name changes over its more than 100-year history, the company became Telstra in 1993.

Today the company has more than more than 9 million fixed line and 9 million mobile services, handles international calls to 230 countries and territories worldwide, and is Australia's 3G market leader, with over 2 million 3G customers.

It also has more than 11,000 telephone exchanges, installs an average of 12,000 services per day and in the financial year ending June 30, 2007 it handled 6.5 billion local calls, 7.1 long distance minutes and 4.9 billion SMS messages.

In the financial year ended June 30, 2007 sales revenue was $23.7 billion Australian ($22 billion) and underlying EBIT $5.8 billion Australian ($5.4 billion).

Telstra is one of Australia's top 10 listed companies, and is a Fortune 500 company.

The company sponsors a large number of sports and teams, including organizations in the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League and V8 Supercars. It also endorses the arts through groups such as Australian Ballet and the Great Southern Blues and Rockabilly Festival.

Telstra won "Next Generation Network Service Provider of the Year" award at the Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards in June 2007 and the Innovation Mobility Award for its Next G! network rollout at the 2007 ACOMMS Awards.

Telstra's Access for Everyone package, valued at over $200 million Australian($186 million) per year, provides support to over 1.5 million Australians who are experiencing financial hardship each year, including more than a million pensioners. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

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