A FORMIDABLE FOOTPRINT

Renowned as Australia’s largest telecommunications company, Telstra has established major presence across Asia, building and operating telecommunications networks that have played a key role in the connectivity, productivity and growth journeys undertaken by several countries during the past five decades.

“It may surprise some people to know that the first ever international connectivity from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam was built by Telstra,” reveals Abfalter. “Similarly, the first mobile networks in Sri Lanka and India were Telstra joint ventures, and the first Singapore to Hong Kong cable was built by Telstra in the 1960s. “We’ve built a reputation for having the best engineers, the best delivery and best assurance teams, priding ourselves as being a partner in the true sense of the word. We have been part of building unique infrastructures in places like Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and the Philippines – more so than any other foreign operator in those markets.”

The company now operates the largest subsea cable network in the Asia Pacific region as well as the lowest latency on most routes. What’s more, it stands as the number one wholesale carrier in

Asia and a key provider to the world’s largest cloud and content companies in APAC.

“We are currently building four new undersea cables with our trans-oceanic partners and have a number of other subsea network projects in planning,” adds Abfalter, eluding to the telco’s future ambitions. “These will not only significantly grow our Asia Pacific network capacity but are also an important part of our Asia Pacific vision.

“At the same time, we are executing a number of in-country investment projects in Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines as well as increasing our data centre and network investment in China. Telstra was one of the first in the market with software defined networks and we are investing further in our Programmable Network footprint.”