Telstra and Hutchison 3G Australia have signed an agreement to establish a new partnership which the carriers claim will deliver a two-year lead on the joint 3G rollout plan of major rivals SingTel and Vodafone.

2004 has a been a big year for IT recruitment, with both jobs and salaries up sharply, and the trend is expected to increase in 2005, according to a half yearly survey of CIOs and senior IT managers.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today announced that it had chosen call centre and data management specialist Salmat Ltd (ASX:SLM) and Telstra to handle its call centre services for the 2006 Census of Population and Housing in a $4.5 milion contract.

Outgoing CEO Ziggy Switkowski has confirmed that the wholesale division of Telstra would be separated from the carrier's retail business, but as yet there will be no separate set of accounts broken out for the division.