He also said Telstra's intention to deploy Fiber to The Node (FTTN) is part of its attempt to discourage investment in the ULL, whose copper lines need constant maintenance.

Fletcher said Optus believes in increasing bandwidth options to customers, but that the ULL should be protected. "There is still life in it."

According to Warren, Telstra needs to invest in FTTN because only 40 percent of residents in cities live within 1.5Kms of an exchange, thus precluding them from access to very high speed DSL broadband. The closer residents are to exchanges, the easier access to speed of 10Mbs and above becomes. According to Telstra, the only other way to get the remaining 60 percent is to use fiber.

However, due to "regulatory uncertainty", Telstra has been forced, Warren claims, to put a hold on its plans to roll out its FTTN broadband network. For Dennis Muscat, CEO of Pacific Internet, the discussion about connection is not the key issue. "It's the service [VOIP, mobility, video-on-demand and the like] that hang off this which is key. Most of which are not realized today."

To achieve this, he said service providers like Pacific Internet needed fair access to the network, fair pricing, and a fair amount of time to help build themselves up so a "quasi monopoly (of Telstra and Optus) does not manifest itself".