This week we have seen the government tell Telstra that it must split into two voluntarily or face a range of sanctions. Whilst this action by the government could be seen as a long overdue effort to split Telstra into two entities, even if they are only at arms length and thereby gain a clear view of the Telstra wholesale divisions pricing to the Telstra retail division and to other retail customers. Interest is now growing on what the government will do next. Will the government attempt to buy the Telstra wholesale division or some part of it and thereby create a new monopoly - the NBN.

An unexpected move by the ACCC could see the value of Telstra's copper network change and the outcome could be confusion. If the copper network becomes more valuable for Telstra over the next 5 years, will this reduce Telstra's need to participate in the national broadband network? Competitors Optus, Primus and others are likely to oppose the copper access pricing change in submissions to the ACCC.