Vodafone Australia

Vodafone Australia (VHA) is a mobile telecommunications company that operates the Vodafone brand in Australia. The result of a merger between Vodafone Australia and Hutchison 3G Australia, it created a mobile communications entity of nearly 7 million subscribers, A$4 billion in annual revenue and a 27 per cent market share making it Australia's third largest mobile telecommunications provider behind Telstra and Optus.

The joint venture entity is owned by Hutchison Telecommunications Australia (a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings) and by Vodafone Group plc on a 50-50 basis. It was formed on 10 June 2009, after shareholder and ACCC approval. At the time of the merger, Former VHA chief executive Nigel Dews said "the first priority is around people and getting the organisation and the organisational structure sorted out", and that head office functions would see the greatest redundancies.

VHA began phasing out the Three brand in mid-2011. At the time registration of new subscribers to Three ended and would instead become Vodafone customers. The Three network was shut down completely on 30 August 2013.

The Vodafone 2G and 3G (2100/900 MHz) networks originally operated as a single network, separate to the Three network. During the merger, VHA had made no comment on their intention to combine the 3 and Vodafone networks, or offer roaming between them. However, as of late 2009, roaming onto the Vodafone's 2G network was enabled for Three customers in areas that had limited 3G coverage (e.g. blackspots), handsets now show '3 2G' instead of 'Roaming'. There are no additional charges in '3's 2G zone', although data speeds are limited.

In late 2010 VHA announced plans to consolidate the Three and Vodafone networks, in an attempt to better compete with Telstra's Next G network, which currently holds the most number of subscribers in Australia (9.3 million). The plan includes the expansion of UMTS 900/2100 MHz coverage in 900 metropolitan sites and 500 outer metropolitan sites across Australia, an end to the 3GIS network (3's UMTS 2100 MHz network, which it has a 50% stake with, the other 50% being held by Telstra), as well as the roll out of 1400 UMTS-850 base stations - 850 MHz being the same band in which the Next G network operates. VHA has spent $550 million on the project so far.