But looking at options usually translates to an asset sale and while Brady wouldn’t characterise taking InfraCo off the market as a rogue decision, the market will certainly see it that way.

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Brady on Thursday said a lot had changed since the company devised its T22 strategy in 2018, part of which was to establish InfraCo – which houses Telstra’s ducts, fibre, data centres and exchanges that support its fixed network – as a standalone business.

Five years on and the booming movement to the cloud and hyper-demand for the next generation of AI drives the use of InfraCo’s infrastructure assets. This business began to look less like a low-growth utility and more like a business with stronger growth prospects.

Already Brady has begun investing in the network through the development of intercity fibre and has plans for more data centres and edge computing infrastructure to increase capacity and improve latency. In other words, make it fit for purpose to accommodate the changing needs of customers.

Brady hasn’t ruled out the possibility of selling it down the track, but she sees better value in renovating it first and quite possibly a fatter sale price as well.

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Telstra skirted around questions about how it tested buyer appetite for InfraCo, other than to say there is lots of interest in these kinds of infrastructure assets. Perhaps if someone had come up with a knockout offer the outcome would have been different.

A few weeks back, Vocus – backed by Macquarie Group – made a $6.3 billion offer for certain TPG enterprise, government and wholesale assets and associated fixed infrastructure assets, including Vision Network. How this prospective deal pans out will be watched closely not just by Telstra but also by all the operators.

Meanwhile, Telstra shareholders will be equally attentive to how Brady and her team plan to further cement the telco’s dominance in mobile market share and the extent to which customers will be happy to wear further price increases.

The Brady era is in full swing at Telstra and it’s shaping up as an interesting ride for shareholders.

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