The Telstra Next G network has added nearly one million new customers over the last six months of 2011, it was announced today.

With 338,000 new post-paid mobile customers on plans and 436,000 mobile broadband customers, Telstra now has some 13.1 million mobile customers. At this rate of nearly 10% growth, Telstra is leaving other mobile competitors in the dust.

While Optus have remained fairly steady with only 1-3% growth over the last quarter, it is Vodafone who have suffered most in the wake of Telstra's upswing. An estimated 375,000 customers left Vodafone in the first half of 2011, most of them due to Vodafone's well-established network outages.

However, this isn't necessary a reason to migrate to Telstra yourself. Telstra's controversial position within the industry has been often discussed, and Telstra themselves have admitted that they are under extra strain with this many new customers. Telstra CEO David Thodey said that while they were "very happy with the performance", "there are going to be hotspots in any one period" and the extra customers are "a lot to cater for".

In the meantime, Vodafone are making a massive effort to redeem their image, upgrading their network, working hard to get all their customers content, and even entering into exclusive deals to be able to provide service for such phones as the LG Prada 3.0.

It's a celebratory quarter for Telstra, but keep your mind ever open to other providers. As the 3G and 4G Telstra network get slowly more crowded, you might find the perfect deal for you with another provider. Call us on 1300 106 571 or take a look at some of our favourite plans to see what other options are open to you.