Telstra, Australia’s leading telecommunications company, joins TCCA
Monday 03 February 2025: Telstra, Australia’s leading telecommunications company, has become the latest organisation to join TCCA, the global member-led organisation for all stakeholders in the critical communications ecosystem.
The Telstra mobile network covers approximately 99.7% of the Australian population, delivering a full range of products and services across a customer base that includes consumers, businesses and government organisations.
Specifically for mission critical communications, Telstra supports public safety and emergency services, mining, oil and gas operations, transportation and logistics. Telstra’s Land Mobile Radio network is essential in many government radio networks, and Telstra’s private mobile broadband networks are deployed extensively across logistics, fleet management, supply chain infrastructure and in the public sector. Satellite connectivity is delivered through partnerships with multiple satellite providers.
“Telstra is excited to become a member of TCCA and to collaborate with operators, suppliers and the broader critical comms industry across the globe to advance mission critical communications,” said Sri Amirthalingam, Wireless Engineering Executive at Telstra. “Telstra has a long history providing emergency services organisations with frontline communications needs and we look forward to continuing our work with customers, communities, industry and government to address the current and future needs of regional Australia. This includes working cooperatively to ensure our investments, new technologies, policy and regulation work together to deliver progress.”
“As a proud Australian, it is with very much pleasure I welcome Telstra to our global membership community and our growing list of leading mobile networks operators devoted to delivering critical communications to essential organisations,” said TCCA CEO Kevin Graham. “With a long history in delivering standards-based narrowband, prioritised broadband solutions for first responders and government agencies and as an active contributor to 3GPP standards we welcome the expertise that Telstra will bring to our international community and, importantly, within Australia. It’s great to see the investments being made into future network capability, AI, and collaboration with local academia and centres of excellence.”
Through the output from its Working Groups, interoperability and certification programmes, and via its world-leading Critical Communications World event, TCCA members and partners set the agenda for the global development of critical communications.
Image courtesy of Telstra
About Telstra
With connectivity never more important or more in demand, our work this year means we are in a stronger position to play an even bigger role in Australia’s digital future. We continued to roll out our new intercity fibre network across Australia, and we announced five new fibre routes to begin construction in 2025 including connecting Darwin to Adelaide and Sydney to Brisbane. We also continued to invest in critical infrastructure such as satellite landing stations, and to upgrade technology and provide capacity on our most sought-after subsea cable systems.
We focused on improving rural and regional connectivity by extending our 5G network and investing in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite internet services, including our world-first satellite home internet with home phone service product which provides high speed, low latency internet in even hard to reach parts of Australia. We not only achieved our 2025 ambition to add 100,000 square kilometres of regional coverage early, but more than doubled that by adding 240,000 square kilometres of new coverage since FY21. Technology is always evolving and we are excited to help Australians transition from 3G to 4G and 5G mobile networks which are faster, more reliable, and more resilient.