TELECOMMUNICATIONS – AUSTRALIA

Aussie Broadband’s budget Buddy chases lost customers

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Original article by Jenny Wiggins
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 15 & 19 : 16-Jul-24

Shares in Aussie Broadband fell by 14 per cent to trade at $3.06 on Monday after the telco announced that its 2024-25 financial year earnings would be between $125 million and $135 million, some $10 million less than its previous forecast. Aussie Broadband launched a new cheap internet brand called Buddy Telco on Monday, with group MD Phillip Britt hoping it will win back some of the customers it has lost to rival Superloop after Aussie Broadband lost a wholesale contract with Origin Energy to Superloop.

CORPORATES
AUSSIE BROADBAND LIMITED – ASX ABB, SUPERLOOP LIMITED – ASX SLC, ORIGIN ENERGY LIMITED – ASX ORG

Telstra ditches carbon offset scheme for direct action

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Original article by Cameron England
The Australian – Page: 13 & 16 : 14-Jun-24

Telstra is to abandon the federal government’s Climate Active carbon neutral labelling program in favour of direct action to cut emissions. The program sees companies, products, buildings and events paying an annual fee to call themselves carbon neutral with government support, although it was attacked by a Senate committee in April over claims it was being used to "greenwash" large companies by enabling them to claim carbon neutrality, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission refusing to endorse the program’s claims. Telstra says the telco’s decision to no longer be part of the program was not related to concerns about the program or carbon credits in general, but that its stakeholders had indicated they preferred a direct approach to emissions reduction.

CORPORATES
TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION

Mobile users to face hit in Telstra cuts

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Original article by Jenny Wiggins
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 16 : 22-May-24

Telstra has revealed plans to reduce its global workforce by up to 2,800 before the end of 2024, as part of its plan to reduce costs by $500m via its T25 strategy. The telco has advised that the job cuts and other cost reduction measures will help to reduce its expenses by $350m by the end of the 2024-25 financial year; however, Telstra has conceded that it will fall short of the T25 target. Telstra’s enterprise division is expected to bear the brunt of the job cuts. Telstra will also increase the price of some mobile phone and internet plans.

CORPORATES
TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS

Telstra delays 3G shutdown over triple zero calls

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Original article by Savannah Meacham
The New Daily – Page: Online : 7-May-24

Telstra has delayed the shutdown of its 3G network until 31 August, in order to give customers people more time to upgrade their devices to enable them to make triple zero emergency calls. Currently around 400,000 devices are 4G enabled, but they still depend on the 3G network to make emergency calls. Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has warned that some people may think their device is operating normally after August, but they will find it will not work when they try to make an emergency call if they have not upgraded it.

CORPORATES
TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS

Telstra delays 3G shutdown over triple zero calls

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Original article by Savannah Meacham
The New Daily – Page: Online : 7-May-24

Telstra has delayed the shutdown of its 3G network until 31 August, in order to give customers people more time to upgrade their devices to enable them to make triple zero emergency calls. Currently around 400,000 devices are 4G enabled, but they still depend on the 3G network to make emergency calls. Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has warned that some people may think their device is operating normally after August, but they will find it will not work when they try to make an emergency call if they have not upgraded it.

CORPORATES
TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS

Optus parent writes off billions

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Original article by Jenny Wiggins
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 13 & 18 : 30-Apr-24

Singapore Telecommunications has announced a $S3.1 billion ($3.5 billion) writedown, most of which relates to its Australian subsidiary Optus. However, its potential impact has been offset by Optus’s agreement with TPG Telecom to share regional telecommunications networks; the agreement will see TPG pay Optus service fees of $1.59 billion over 11 years. Optus will use that money to accelerate its investment in 5G networks and complete them two years faster than foreshadowed. TPG’s deal with Optus comes after competition regulators rejected a $1.8 billion deal proposed by TPG and Telstra in 2023 to share networks and spectrum.

CORPORATES
SINGAPORE TELECOMMUNICATIONS LIMITED, SINGTEL OPTUS PTY LTD, TPG TELECOM LIMITED – ASX TPG, TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS

Telstra installs robot helpers across stores, call centres in push towards AI-fuelled future

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Original article by Matthew Elmas
The New Daily – Page: Online : 20-Feb-24

Telstra has started to deploy an artificial intelligence tool called Ask Telstra to assist staff in handling customers’ complaints. Ask Telstra is powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI, and is intended to be an internal search engine that will allow employees in the telco’s stores and call centres to access customers’ data quickly when they make a complaint or seek assistance. Professor Gary Mortimer from the Queensland University of Technology believes that unscripted, synthetic and natural AI voice interactions will eventually become the norm for retailers.

CORPORATES
TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS, QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Long search ahead for new telco chief

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Original article by Jared Lynch, Eric Johnston, Greg Brown, Tansy Harcourt
The Australian – Page: 6 : 21-Nov-23

Optus has appointed CFO Michael Venter as its interim CEO following the resignation of Kelly Bayer Rosmarin in the wake of the recent network outage. Bayer Rosmarin told Optus staff that she had decided that her resignation was in the best interests of the telco. She was widely criticised for her response to the outage, and she had attracted similar criticism over her handling of Optus’s data breach in 2022. Yuen Kuan Moon, the CEO of parent company Singapore Telecommunications, says Bayer Rosmarin had led Optus during a "challenging period", and stressed that Optus is an "integral part" of the company’s business.

CORPORATES
SINGTEL OPTUS PTY LTD, SINGAPORE TELECOMMUNICATIONS LIMITED

Identity of third party that brought down Optus network revealed

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Original article by David Swan, Ben Grubb
The Age – Page: Online : 15-Nov-23

Optus recently disclosed that its recent network outage was caused by a software upgrade by an ‘international peering network’, but declined to name this third party. However, sources close to Optus have revealed that it was the telco’s own parent company, Singapore Telecommunications; the botched upgrade is said to have been made on the Singtel Internet Exchange, and subsequently cascaded through the Optus network. Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin will appear before a Senate hearing into the outage on Friday.

CORPORATES
SINGTEL OPTUS PTY LTD, SINGAPORE TELECOMMUNICATIONS LIMITED

Communication fail: Optus opts out

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Original article by Simon Benson, Joseph Lam, Jess Malcolm
The Australian – Page: 1 & 5 : 9-Nov-23

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says Optus should have been upfront with its customers regarding the network outage that caused nationwide chaos on Wednesday. The Optus network went offline at about 4am, but the telco did not issue its first statement online until 6.45am and CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin did not make any public statements until 10.30am. Optus’s mobile network, internet and landline services were not fully restored until about 6pm. Bayer Rosmarin says the outage was caused by a "vey technical network engineering issue" and Optus technicians have yet to determine its cause; however, she has emphasised that it was not due to a botched network upgrade.

CORPORATES
SINGTEL OPTUS PTY LTD, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS