The federal government reaches an agreement with Telstra for telco to shift network traffic to the national broadband network (NBN) worth $43 billion.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told The Australian yesterday that he would release the findings of an implementation study by business consultants McKinsey and KPMG this week, however, he would not respond to it until a phase of community consultation was complete. In spite the nature of Telstra's commitment, he was still confident the findings would support the economic case for building the NBN.

Senator Conroy was carefully sanguine about the discussions' progress and would not comment on rumours that the competition regulator's likely response to such a move, or about the government that was impelling Telstra to relinquish 400,000 cable broadband customers to the NBN.

He also stated that the government would reintroduce legislation to fix regulation of the telco market and branch out Telstra's wholesale and retail arms next week. This would be the fourth time the government will have tried to have the Bill passed by the upper house.

According to The Australian, the government have been going through a tough week as the budget is critical, however the hitch is that the opposition continues to highjack the operation of the Senate.

"They are utterly irresponsible and they have refused any extensions of time. They have regularly blocked debate on this bill, we have a whole range of government bills that are vitally important to be progressed. This is one of them, and we'll be seeking to have it brought on and debated."