Exetel chief, John Linton, said he believed the Telstra-NBN Co agreement would have no impact on Exetel, nor any other communications provider, as far as he could see.

"The eventual replacement of Telstra by the NBN Co, assuming that happens, is several years away in any meaningful quantities and as can be seen from today's half yearly report, a great deal can happen to the Australian communications providers in that time," Linton said.

"The key question for us at the moment is how long Telstra will continue to try and 'win back' ADSL customers by spending very large amounts of shareholder money that butchers its own revenue and profit lines?"

Linton has previously commented on this theme , arguing that Telstra's attraction of some 600,000-plus residential ADSL customers from rivals was a Pyrrhic victory.

"Losing customers is always a bad thing but when the largest provider in any supply chain spends an amount of money greater than all of its competitor's (bar one or two) gross annual revenue to attack their customer bases then its an inevitable result," Linton wrote.