Australian telecom Giant Telstra Corp. Ltd., one of Australian Edge’s original eight “income wonders from down under,” gave a prime example this week that there’s more to the Australian investment story than just resources.

The country’s other major attraction as an investment destination is, of course, its proximity to fast-growing Asian markets. And Australia’s stock market is a far safer and easier way to gain exposure to these markets than investing directly in Asian emerging market equities.

On Tuesday, Telstra (ASX: TLS, OTC: TTRAF, ADR: TLSYY) announced it would acquire Asian telecom Pacnet Limited, a provider of connectivity, managed services and data-center services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments in the Asia-Pacific region.

The company says the acquisition includes interests in Pacnet’s China joint venture, PBS, which is licensed to operate a domestic Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network and provide data-center services in most major provinces in China.

The $697 million acquisition, which includes about $400 million in gross debt, is subject to regulatory and Pacnet financier approvals and is expected to close by mid-2015.

Telstra, which is often described as the Verizon and AT&T of Australia, already dominates the domestic market in fixed-wire and wireless communications. And it also has a significant role in building and maintaining the country’s National Broadband Network (NBN), for which it will be paid $11 billion over a 30-year period.

Now, as evidenced by this latest deal, the $58.5 billion firm is increasingly looking for investment opportunities overseas to boost long-term growth and expand its Global Enterprise Services business. And the dependable cash flows it generates from its enormous share of the Australian market should provide earnings stability while it looks for new growth in other markets.

Of course, Telstra already has a substantial presence in Asia, with 1,400 staff in the region, as well as its 57% stake in Autohome, a Chinese online marketplace for cars that has a market capitalization of around $4.1 billion.

But Asia still offers significant opportunities for future growth. And management has a three-pronged strategy for further expansion in the region:

1) Telstra intends to become a leading provider of enterprise services to multinational corporations and other large firms operating in Asia.

2) The telecom will leverage its existing network to create other opportunities for connectivity in the region.

3) Longer term, Telstra will build upon its investments in areas such as software and invest in similar areas in Asia.

As for its latest deal with Pacnet, upon consummation the combined entity will become a leader in Asia’s service provider market, while nearly doubling Telstra’s Global Enterprise Services business in the region.

Singapore-based Pacnet has 800 staff across 24 cities and 11 countries and regions from Australia into Southeast Asia, north Asia, as well as the U.S. and the U.K., with strategically located assets in a number of these areas.

In 2013, the firm generated $472 million in revenue and $111 million in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization). Telstra’s management believes it can find nearly $53 million in synergies, thanks to overlapping infrastructure, and it expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings per share within two years.

Reuters notes that Telstra will be acquiring Pacnet for significantly less than the $1 billion price analysts had expected the company to fetch.

The news service says that according to reports in the Australian media Pacnet’s owners, Ashmore Investment Management Ltd., Spinnaker Capital Ltd. and Clearwater Capital Partners, had been trying to cash out of their investment in the company for several years.

Although analysts agreed that Telstra got a good deal on Pacnet in terms of price, they’re not nearly as ebullient as management on the company itself or how it meshes with Telstra’s growth strategy.

For one, Pacnet will be a bit of a turnaround play for Telstra, since revenue has been declining and the firm has also posted operating losses over the past two years.

During management’s Q&A following the announcement of the acquisition, Deutsche Bank analyst James Wang wondered why Telstra didn’t simply rent particular assets instead of acquiring the company as a whole.

And Credit Suisse analyst Fraser McLeish told The Sydney Morning Herald, “I’m not sure it adds a lot to Telstra from a network perspective. Telstra has already got a pretty strong network infrastructure in the region, but it does add customers, revenues and scale to Telstra global.”

“Their Asian expansion strategy has been a range of organic where they can, joint ventures where possible and acquisitions. I think the issue is just finding acquisitions that fit. There’s a limited amount of things available, but I do think this broadly fits within that Asian strategy,” McLeish observed.

Over the trailing 12-month period, shares of Telstra have generated a total return of 19.4%, and currently trade near their highest level since 2001. The stock’s net yield is almost 5%, while dividend growth has averaged 1.8% annually over the past three years.