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Telstra launching cybersecurity centres internationally

Telstra is utilising its 'deep, deep skills in cyber' by launching security operations centres in Sydney, Melbourne, and across the globe, as well as likely upgrading its existing facility in Canberra.
Written by Corinne Reichert, Contributor

Telstra will be opening cybersecurity centres internationally following the launch of its security operations centres (SOCs) in Sydney and Melbourne over the next few weeks, CEO Andy Penn has announced.

Speaking during Telstra's FY17 financial results call, Penn said Australia's incumbent telecommunications provider is currently looking at locations for international SOCs, but would not disclose the sites.

However, he added that the two new Australian centres will be launching "very soon ... in the coming weeks".

"There's no doubt that large enterprises and even smaller enterprises today are becoming increasingly concerned by cybersecurity risks that they face," Penn told ZDNet.

"There's virtually no technology innovation that's happening today that isn't intended to be connected. That means it's across a network, and what's critical is those innovations and that technology is protected from a cyber perspective.

"We've got deep, deep, deep skills in cyber because of our own need to protect our networks, but also we provide a very significant dynamic service for our enterprise customers, and this is really a significant investment in really building that service for our enterprise customers."

Penn told ZDNet that Telstra will also likely upgrade its existing SOC in Canberra.

Underpinning Telstra's SOCs is its suite of managed security services announced in March and launched in July, Penn said, in addition to the company's 500 "cybersecurity experts".

"We have a dynamic product offering which is integrated with some of the best data analytics globally and the best access to data globally, so that's actually the fundamental offering, and then the security operations themselves actually enable ourselves on behalf of our customers, or our customers, to monitor 24/7 effectively the cyber activity on their networks," Penn told ZDNet.

"You need the data analytics and you need the artificial intelligence and the machine learning capabilities to process what's actually happening deeply at the network level, and you need the sensors deep within the network, and that's the dynamic security offering that is already launched. We've already got customers on that who are very pleased with that offering, and then we're supporting that with the security operations centres."

Penn said Telstra has the "smartest" network in Australia, with the telco currently also upgrading its fibre-optic network to allow for terabit capacity.

"We have commenced the rollout of our next-gen optical fibre and transmission network; Tasmania was the first state to benefit from this upgrade," the chief executive said.

"This will increase Telstra's network capacity to 1 terabit per second, and has already done so on each of Telstra's two subsea cables running across the Bass Strait. We're already rolling this out to the rest of the country, and there is future potential to increase the capacity to 100 terabits per second."

In addition, Penn spruiked the company's Cat-M1 Internet of Things (IoT) network, built in conjunction with Ericsson and switched on earlier this month on the 4GX network.

"Cat-M1 will give us the platform for the significant growth we expect to see in IoT," Penn said.

Telstra currently has more than 8,600 mobile towers, 5,000 telephone exchanges, 200,000 switches and routers, 240,000km of optical fibre cable, and 400,000km of submarine cable.

Telstra TV 2

Penn also announced the launch of the Telstra TV 2, saying that Telstra remains "committed to Foxtel" despite its dropping revenue and is in discussions with co-owner News Corp on how best to structure and arrange Foxtel in future.

"We're about to dial it up again," Penn said, detailing that the Telstra TV 2 will include all streaming and catch-up TV services along with a linked mobile app, making it "a real Australian first".

"Access to the best content is critically important to us as demand for media continues to grow. At the same time, the media market is changing with new participants and increased competition," Telstra added.

Telstra's media revenue grew by 8.2 percent to AU$935 million thanks to uptake of both the Telstra TV and "Foxtel from Telstra". Foxtel from Telstra made AU$777 million in revenue, growing by 8.1 percent due to 57,000 additional subscribers, and there are now 827,000 Telstra TV devices in the market.

The Telstra TV originally launched in October 2015.

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