Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS) shares are underperforming on Friday morning.
At the time of writing, the telco giant's shares are down slightly to $4.06.
This is despite there being some news out of the company.
What did Telstra announce?
On Thursday afternoon, Telstra revealed that it is strengthening its leadership position with a deal with Elon Musk's Starlink business.
According to the release, the two parties are collaborating to bring Satellite-to-Mobile (direct-to-handset) text messaging to customers in Australia.
Telstra notes that this will enable it to provide better coverage from coast to coast, especially for those in regional and remote areas. The collaboration will initially focus on testing and refining a Satellite-to-Mobile text messaging capability for Australian conditions, ahead of a commercial launch.
The company has the largest mobile network in Australia covering 99.7% of the Australian population over an area of 3 million square kilometres. This is more than 1 million square kilometres greater than its nearest competitor.
However, it notes that Australia's landmass is vast and there will always be large areas where mobile and fixed networks do not reach. This is where satellite technology will play a complementary role to its existing networks.
And it may not stop at text messaging. Telstra points out that as satellite technology continues to evolve to support voice, data and IoT, it will explore opportunities for the commercial launch of those new services.
Telstra's Group Executive Global Networks and Tech, Shailin Sehgal, said:
We're committed to continue enhancing our mobile network to meet the growing demands and increasing data usage of our customers, which includes our continued roll out of 5G to cover 95% of the Australian population by FY25.
In fact, over the past seven years to the end of FY24 we have invested $11.8bn into our mobile network across the country. We have a continued focus on network resilience across all our technologies, architecture and network operations to make the network as reliable as possible. This includes making equipment more resilient in disaster-prone areas and increasing redundancy through adding diversified backhaul pathways including using satellite backhaul solutions.
We will continue this investment to improve our terrestrial mobile network, while exploring how satellite technology can play a role in remote areas of the country not covered by land-based coverage.
Telstra shares are up 4% over the past 12 months.
