Telstra or Telstra Corporation Ltd (often abbreviated as Telstra Corp), (asx: TLS, nzx: TLS) is an Australian telecommunications and media company, formerly owned by the Australian government. Telstra is the largest provider of both local and long distance telephone services, mobile services, dialup, wireless, DSL and cable internet access in Australia. Telstra is based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Formerly Telecom Australia, the company was renamed in 1993 to Telstra. The company has traded domestically and internationally under the Telstra brand, even after privatisation in 2006. Telstra's headquarters are located at the Telstra Corporate Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

History

right|thumb|200px|Telstra World Headquarters; The Telstra Corporate Centre at 242 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, Australia

Telstra rural exchange showing both the former Telecom Australia and current Telstra signs

In 1989 the ATC was reconstituted as the Australian Telecommunications Corporation.

In 1992 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 1993. 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.

Telstra has faced competition since the early 1990s from Optus (Australia's 2nd largest communication company) and a host of other smaller providers. It retains ownership of the fixed-line telephone network, as well as one of two competing pay-TV and data cable networks. Other companies offering fixed-line services must therefore deal with Telstra except Optus, Transact and a few others who have installed their own infrastructure.

On 15 December 2008, it was announced that Telstra's bid for the National Broadband Network had been rejected by the Australian Government. This resulted in Telstra's share price nose-diving from $4.12 to $3.36 during trading on the ASX on the 16 December 2008.

Branding

From 1998, Telstra used the slogan "Making life easier", however this slogan was dropped in 2000. The original Telstra logo introduced in 1993 symbolized a telephone receiver beneath the leg of the "T", however, coinciding with the launch of the Next G Network in late 2006, Telstra began to replace this with a modified logo where leg of the T is no longer implied. Initially this logo was rendered in a 3D "bubbly" effect and used brighter colours than the 2D variant, however Telstra's branding team dropped this 3D effect in early 2007, reverting to the original corporate colours. More recently, Telstra have chosen to use simply the "T" from the logo in advertising and promotional material.