Coutts continued that the NBN is not just about NBN Co and whether it can make a commercial return, but is also about restructuring the industry.

"This is a key issue. What we have seen over the years is a change in the industry's structure from a telecoms as a public service to an attractive commercial sector with commercial returns," Coutts said. "So that from Telstra's point of view they have to seek commercial returns compared to other options they may have. Once you change the paradigm to it being a utility, funding roads and so forth, you are into a different rate of return. This is a message the Federal Government, I guess, has found challenging to communicate. The problem here is the telco sector is very capital impatient compared to what it might have been 40 years ago."

Communications minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, was trying to push this message on the weekend, telling the ABC's Inside Business program the .

"Telstra have made the point themselves; they cannot build a business case to reach 100 per cent of Australians [with a fibre-to-the-home network]," Conroy said. "The best they have said they will be able to do is to reach 60 per cent of Australians. That is five capital cities and a little bit up and down, north and south of Sydney.

"So we have never taken the approach that we need to make the rate of return that the telco sector is used to. This is a project which returns all of the government's money and interest costs, and makes a modest return of six to seven per cent."