History of the Telstra Research Laboratories

End of the Clockroom

Telstra's time services platform, more commonly known as Telstra's speaking clock, has reached the end of its lifecycle. After providing a variety of time services for more than 20 years, Telstra decided that from 15 March 2006 to exit its remaining speaking clock continuous feeds Civil Time, 1 kHz, Two Tone, Time Pips and Computime.

From this date, Informatel will make a variety of these time services available commercially. Informatel is an Australian-based service provider which currently provides Telstra's publicly available 'Dial-It' 1194 Time Service. Telstra decided to exit its remaining time services because the existing platform reached the end of its lifecycle due to aged infrastructure and equipment. Furthermore, modern alternatives have superseded the technology used in the existing platform and these alternatives are able to provide more efficient and reliable time services.

The clockroom was located within the Telstra Research Laboratories at Clayton Victoria. The photos below show the original speaking clock room before and after the equipment was relocated. Some of the equipment is now located at the Victorian Telecommunications Museum in Hawthorn. In particular, they have one of the original optical glass disk speaking clocks and the 1990 digital version. See also Speaking Clock

Clockroom before equipment relocation

Clockroom after equipment relocation