Telstra Appoints American CEO of Growing US Business and Fine Tunes US Strategy.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 6, 2000

Opens New Offices in Dallas, LA & Chicago To Service Rapidly

Growing Customer Base

Telstra Corporation, Australia's premier full service provider and a leading carrier in the Asia Pacific region, today announced the appointment of Rob Tsarnas as President and Chief Executive Officer of its wholly-owned US subsidiary, Telstra Incorporated.

In his new role, Mr. Tsarnas will oversee global account management (GAM) for Telstra's US-based Fortune 500 and 1000 customers with operations in the Asia Pacific region, Europe and Latin America. He will be ultimately responsible for managing the further development of Telstra's widespread and rapidly expanding wholesale carrier business in North America, as well as interconnection with the company's extensive Asia-Pacific and global networks. Mr. Tsarnas is based at Telstra Inc.'s US headquarters in San Francisco.

"We are pleased to appoint Rob Tsarnas to head up our US operations," said Mike Foster, Chief of Business Sales, Telstra Corp. "We are confident that he will continue to increase our US customer base and revenues, which he did admirably in his previous position as Executive V.P. of Retail Sales, and to improve upon the level of service we provide customers here in the States," he said.

"Telstra has had a presence in this country for more than 10 years and the appointment of the first American CEO of our US operations underscores our strengthened commitment to this important market," Mr. Foster said.

"We have learned a great deal from our first full year of offering fully interconnected global services from the US," said Rob Tsarnas, President & Chief Executive Officer of Telstra Inc. "We are finding that there is a great need for our Global Account Management expertise, as well as our long held Asia Pacific experience and ability to leverage relationships with our business partners throughout the region," he added.

"Over the years, Telstra has built a global reputation for assisting the largest multinational corporations in the world," Mr. Tsarnas said. "Our recently expanded US presence allows us to extend our expertise to smaller companies, helping them go global," he said.

"We continue to expand our long-standing commitment to our US customers with regional and national sales and support," said Mr. Tsarnas. "We have assembled some of the best project managers and communications engineers from around the globe to service our US customer base," he added.

To meet the growing demand from national and international companies across North America, Telstra recently opened new sales offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas to supplement regional head offices in San Francisco and New York.

As Executive V.P. of Retail Sales, Mr. Tsarnas was previously responsible for Telstra's retail sales in the US and for managing the regional sales Vice Presidents. Before joining Telstra, Rob was an Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing of North American Telecommunications, a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) with networks spanning the East Coast of the US. Prior to this, Rob was CEO and President of Mobile One Wireless Network and CEO of Accelerated Business Marketing. He has also held the positions of Director of Advertising for American Cable Systems and Marketing Manager for ViewData Corporation of America.

Telstra Inc. provides networking solutions to US-based companies by leveraging Telstra's Asia Pacific presence, US national network, locally based global account management and an extensive network of quality partners. Based in San Francisco, Telstra Inc. maintains a nationwide staff of sales, marketing, customer service and network engineering specialists in the US.

Telstra Inc. offers a comprehensive portfolio of integrated voice and data network services and end-to-end managed network services including ATM and Frame Relay, private lines, IP and enhanced toll free services.

Telstra's US network includes East and West coast switching facilities linked by redundant voice and data network capacity and a national IP backbone network. This network provides a level of redundancy for Telstra's worldwide network, which incorporates substantial investments in more than 50 worldwide submarine cable systems and satellite earth station complexes throughout the Asia Pacific region, Europe and North America plus other global affiliations including INTELSAT, PanAmSat, AsiaSat, INMARSAT and Infonet.

About Telstra Corporation Limited

Telstra Corp. (NYSE: TLS) is Australia's leading communications carrier and a world-class fully integrated, full-service provider across wireline, ADSL, HFC, satellite and digital wireless networks and platforms. It is Australia's leading ISP, has the most highly accessed family of Internet portals and sites and provides entertainment and multimedia content over its broadband network and through its Pay-TV joint venture.

A top tier global carrier with fiscal 1999/00 revenue of A$19.8 billion (approx US$12.4 billion), Telstra placed 62nd in Business Week's 1999 Global 1000 ranking of the world's most valuable companies by market value. The Wall Street Journal ranked Telstra in the top 50 of 'The World's 100 largest Public Companies' in 1999. Telstra was credited earlier this year with underpinning Australia's first place ranking in a survey of 100 MNCs in 22 countries by the National University of Singapore's Centre for Telemedia Strategies http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/telemedia on such criteria as regulatory environment, price, choice and service.

At the XXVII Olympiad, hosted by Sydney Australia, Telstra's Millennium Network(TM) allowed the world's media to deliver the Games to an estimated daily global audience of up to 4 billion. This was the first time in the history of the Olympic Games that a single telecommunications company had designed, installed and operated the entire network. Linking into Telstra's national and international networks, the infrastructure used to convey the 2000 Games to the world utilized enough optical fiber to circle the planet 37 times! Additional information on Telstra and its services is available by calling 1-877-Telstra or viewing Telstra on the World Wide Web at http://www.telstra.com.