Australian telecommunication firms jointly criticised the proposed network scheme of the national broadband network by NBN Co, describing the plan as a magnet for huge compensation suits and a stumbling block for further infrastructure initiatives.

Telstra, Optus, TPG and AAPT, four of the country's leading telco firms, said on Tuesday that the network infrastructure proposal submitted by NBN Co to the government was purely wasteful for pushing forward the establishment of a new network that would sit on top of the companies' existing telecommunication facilities.

However, NBN Co said that its submitted proposal would pave the way for similar pricing of fibre optic broadband services for both regional and metropolitan users, an engineering solution that telco analysts said would be bested out by the cross-subsidy scheme that is expected to be more effective in equalising broadband services costs across the country.

The office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy confirmed on Monday that a copy of the plan has reached the ministry and would be made public in the coming weeks, which should also carry the government's reaction on the study once the document is released.

On its proposal, NBN Co has proposed the construction of 14 network connection points with additional 195 points in regional areas to be used on special purposes, where the country's telcos would access the NBN network for data delivery on their respective customers.

Australia's existing copper network has an estimated 500 connection points with most small telcos maintaining their own backhauls that carry network exchanges and bypass Telstra's facilities to avoid paying any data fees.

Yet the NBN plan of building only connection points in capital cities would render the backhauls useless as local providers would not be able to utilise the already in-place structures, which number up to 300 exchanges across the whole of Australia and owned by TPG, Optus and AAPT, with Telstra emerging as the dominant owner on almost all of the backhauls and exchanges currently in operation.

In response to a call by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for an industry feedback on the NBN Co proposal, all the telco firms agreed that the composite model would result to infrastructure wastes, with the AAPT stressing that the plan "will result in significant stranding of the assets of many access seekers, which could conceivably lead to a series of compensation claims."

Sharing the telcos collective sentiments, Optus said that the unnecessary NBN Co scheme could lead to millions of dollars of losses as the company suggested instead that flat pricing for broadband services in Australia could be easily achieved by implementing similar fees on retailers regardless of their location.