Has Telstra’s Big Flaky Network Marketing Spin Finally Been Exposed With The ACCC Set To Investigate

Has Telstra’s ‘Big’ flaky marketing spin about the size of their network finally been exposed by a rival, with the carrier now facing the potential of a massive new fine if the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission decides to take action over claims that their so called big network is not as big as management has been making out.

The carrier who has been fined millions in the past for questionable business activities and downright lies about their services, was exposed by rival Vodafone’s owner, TPG who claims that Telstra overstated its mobile coverage by about one million square kilometres.

Back in January 2025, TPG managing director Inaki Berroeta claimed that he hoped to woo Telstra customers as the carrier started offering Optus’ regional phone network.

The bombshell came this week when TPG demolished the claimed size of Telstra’s mobile phone network.

3G Network shutdown (Image: Sourced from Telstra website)

Telstra who has been raising prices and flogging off assets in an effort to compete of late, has long used the claim that they have the biggest and fastest 4G and then 5G network in Australia.

The move to generate additional revenues from consumers and their mobile network follow the restructure of its struggling enterprise business that has failed to generate the revenues the Company had anticipated.

The one thing that set them apart was the size of their network claims observers.

Former competition tsar Allan Fels has told the Australian newspaper who first exposed TPG’s claims that Telstra could potentially face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, depending on how the consumer watchdog assesses allegations the telco “tricked Australians into paying top dollar”.

Ironically Telstra has removed its “unrivalled three million square kilometres claim” from its website.

Fels who has previously called for Telstra to be broken up when he headed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission – said it looked as though Telstra was at risk of breaching laws relating to misleading and deceptive conduct.

What Telstra now claims is that consumers wanting to access the full Telstra network needed to carry a mobile antenna in their vehicle. This has not been disclosed by the carrier in the past.

A Telstra spokesman admitted it had always calculated its coverage based on outdoor mobile phone use and external antennas.

The only problem is that these antennas can cost thousands of dollars with grey nomads who in the past believed that during their journey’s around Australia they would be able to get access to mobile communication where Telstra claimed without having to invest in an expensive antenna.

TPG claim that the extra cost of an antenna was never disclosed, and that consumers believed they had access to those three million square kilometres when using a regular mobile phone.

Splashing the cash for fines at the expense of profits appear to have become the norm for Telstra who have been fined over $75m in the past seven years for making false or misleading representations or engaging in unconscionable conduct.

The network who bans journalists and commentators who expose their questionable behaviour have in the past been hit with fines over their dodgy upload speed claims on their network.

Earlier this year the Federal Court hit the carrier over false or misleading representations about their Belong’s upload speeds.

It was revealed that Telstra failed to notify customers that it halved their upload speed to 20Mbps without cutting the price of the service.

Recently Telstra acquired the Boost mobile business in Australia with questions now being raised as to whether the Telstra brand is so damaged that they are having to resort to buying other branded networks in an effort to grow their mobile business.

In late 2022, Telstra was fined $15m after it admitted making false or misleading representations to consumers when promoting certain NBN internet plans.

That followed a $50m fine imposed on the telco in May that year for engaging in unconscionable conduct when it sold mobile contracts to more than 100 Indigenous consumers who were unable to cover their cost.

And in April 2018, Telstra was fined $10m for making false or misleading representations to customers in relation to its third-party billing service known as “Premium Direct Billing”.

In the past the Companies CEO Vicki Brady (seen below) has spruiked the size of the Companies network in an effort to woo investors

Back in February at an investor briefing Brady said: “We have expanded our coverage to more than 3 million square kilometres, now reaching 99.7 per cent of Australia’s population.

“To put that in perspective, our mobile network covers more than double the area of Optus’s network, and around three times the area of the Vodafone/TPG network.”

Telstra says it now provides “at least” one million square kilometres more coverage than TPG – or twice the amount of its rival.

It did not respond to Australian newspaper journalist Jarad Lynch’s questions about exactly how much coverage it provided Australians based on normal mobile phone use.