Dominant Australian telco Telstra has added another string to its bow in the increasingly important area of managed network services with the buy-out of the minority stakes of IBM and Lend Lease in a local joint venture.

Telstra has signed a letter of intent to purchase the remaining shares in Advantra. The venture was formed in 1997 by combining some of the network service businesses owned at the time by IBM and Telstra. No financial details were disclosed.

Lindsay Yelland, MD of Telstra's business solutions group, said Advantra had moved closer to Telstra's core business as it dabbled in e-commerce and overseas markets.

"Advantra will give us extra resource capacity and functionality to implement solutions and support our customers as well as a wider range of products and services," said Yelland. "We have moved away from provision of telecommunications products to the provision of total solutions."

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