Budde told ARN he offered to stand aside to be replaced by a Telstra nominee as moderator of the panel session to placate Telstra, but said the telco rejected the compromise and instead pulled out altogether. He said it was totally inappropriate for Telstra to interfere with the scheduling of an independent conference organiser.

"It clearly shows a total abuse of its dominant power, this is what I call an absolute interference in freedom of speech," Budde said.

"It's a commercial activity for Terrapinn, these people live for conferences, but they stuck to their guns and said 'no, we are an independent conference organisation and we are not going to do that'. So Telstra said 'OK, we withdraw'."

A Telstra spokesperson told ARN that it was originally envisaged the Conference would occur after the lodgement of proposals under the National Broadband Network RFP.

"With the later lodgement date, this is no longer the case. The combination of the need to maintain confidentiality under the National Broadband Network RFP and the inability to reach agreement on a fair and balanced panel meant that regrettably Telstra was no longer in a position to participate," the spokesperson said.