Telstra is Australia’s largest telecommunications company by market share. Thus, announcing a $200 million co-investment fund to generate additional investment in improving regional mobile coverage, running over the next four years, will come as no surprise to its subscribers as well as to other operators.

According to Telstra CEO Andrew Penn, the co-investment fund is in addition to the already-announced $150 million that the company is set to invest in the next 12 months. This is aligned with the telco’s goal to improve regional connectivity. “We have seen great success from this type of approach in the past, with Telstra investing over $120 million in such projects over the last few years,” the CEO said. 

“Technology innovation never stands still, which is why looking over the horizon now is so important, particularly with the Prime Minister’s aspiration for Australia to be a world-leading digital economy by 2030, and the National Farmers Federation’s aspiration to grow the agriculture sector of the economy to $100 billion in the same time frame”.

“Technology is going to play a major role in meeting both of these aspirations. With these technologies and our investments, we have increased capacity in our network year on year to cater to the around 40% per annum growth in our customer’s traffic demand, and we have been able to extend our coverage up to 100,000 sq km each year.”

As to the allocation of the existing $150 million funding over the next 12 months, the CEO said that:

“These include improving coverage at popular destination spots in regional areas, capacity upgrades, the upgrade of 3G only sites to 4G and building new 4G sites, technology development for long-range sites and small cells with satellite back-haul.”

He further added: “Last week when the Government announced the result of the Regional Connectivity Program funding, Telstra was the only major retail provider to win projects and commit funding to improve services”.

“In the Government’s Mobile Black Spot Program Telstra has put up three times more capital than the rest of the industry put together, and we are building more than 75% of all of the mobile blackspot towers in the program.”

When it comes to the allocation of the $200 million funding, a spokesperson for the company said that there is an application process for governments, councils, and organisations. In this case, the projects are largely based on commercial factors, as well as how the community uses them.