SYDNEY (AFP) - Cashed-up Australian telecoms giant Telstra said Thursday it has completed its acquisition of Pacnet, Asia's biggest private owner of sub-marine communication cables, with the brand name to be progressively retired.

Telstra announced it was buying the company for US$697 million in December in one of its largest acquisitions to date, with regulatory hurdles now cleared.

Pacnet, headquartered in Singapore and Hong Kong, also offers data centre services to carriers, governments and multinationals across the Asia-Pacific.

"The addition of Pacnet's staff, infrastructure, technology and expertise will position Telstra as a leading provider of services to multinational and large companies in Asia," said Telstra's head of global enterprise and services Brendon Riley.

"The completed acquisition will double Telstra's customers in Asia, and greatly increase our network reach and data centre capabilities across the region."

The buyout includes Pacnet's interests in its China joint venture PBS, which Telstra said it would continue to develop.

Telstra has signalled for some time its intention to make technology acquisitions in Asia and has previously formed partnerships, but this is its largest deal to date.

As well as operating a network of 29 interconnected data centres in 17 cities across Asia, Pacnet has the region's largest privately owned sub-marine cable network with a combined length of 46,000km.

It also controls two of the five fibre pairs on the Unity trans-Pacific sub-marine cable network connecting Japan to the United States.