The non-binding Financial Heads of Agreement deal, should it receive a tick from Telstra shareholders next year, will grant the NBN Co access to Telstra's network pits and the "right" to its backhaul.

The deal will also see customers on Telstra's existing copper and HFC or cable networks progressively migrate over to the NBN, effectively boosting take-up of the national network's services and allowing customers the chance to choose another service provider on an equal access standing. The telco will as customers migrate across.

Internode managing director, Simon Hackett, said the NBN is only financially viable if Telstra engaged with it as a retail service provider (RSP).

"The NBN needs Telstra as a paying customer to make the numbers add up. So the government had to announce an intention of this sort to make the NBN make sense at all," Hackett said, adding that compensation paid to Telstra for migrating its ADSL customers to the NBN should extend to all carriers with ADSL investments.

"The ADSL2+ market would not exist without those competitors and those investments, and the innovation here isn't about the copper wires - its all about the equipment installed at the ends."