Do we like Telstra?
Australia's largest telecoms company: mobile, home internet and business networks, including the Belong and Boost brands. Based in Australia
Our score: 5 out of 10. Mixed. It has a strong climate and regional-coverage record, but repeated consumer-law penalties and a July 2026 outage that hit Triple Zero calls hurt trust.
Telstra is Australia's biggest telco, and it's led by Vicki Brady. She became CEO in September 2022 after being CFO, and before that she worked at rival Optus. The chair is Craig Dunn.
The big drama this year was the 8 July 2026 nationwide outage. A software defect in its timekeeping systems left hundreds of people unable to call Triple Zero, and Telstra ran hundreds of welfare checks. The PM called it 'deeply concerning'. Brady apologised and said the company let customers down.
Then the pay row. ABC reported that Brady got an 11% pay rise to $6.8m while Telstra cut 1,200 jobs. Her bonus was reduced because the outage was within the company's control. Telstra denied the job cuts caused the outage.
Telstra also has form with consumer law. In 2021 the Federal Court ordered $50m over unconscionable sales to Indigenous customers, and Telstra admitted it. In 2025 it was ordered to pay $18m for moving about 9,000 Belong customers to slower upload plans without telling them.
On the plus side, Telstra says it has cut its own emissions by about half from 2019 levels and enabled renewable generation above its electricity use. It also says it has added far more regional coverage than it promised. We'd call it a decent but flawed pick, so 5/10.