Major telcos called on federal authorities to expedite the availability of new network spectrum that would further boost Australia's 4G services, reports said.

The Australian identified the companies as Telstra Corporation and Optus, which reportedly made known their intents to access the 700 MHz band, previously reserved for use of analog television broadcast signals, which will be phased out in the immediate periods ahead.

As the switch off roll out nationwide in gradual mode, 'restack' of digital TV signals will also be implemented in the same manner to clear out likely interference between mobile phone services and television broadcasts, the News Ltd publication said.

Both Telstra and Optus would want the new spectrum to be made available to telecommunication firms despite earlier indications from the Communications Ministry that it can only accessed beginning the first month of 2015.

Telstra, The Australian said, reportedly affirmed its desire to access the spectrum a little earlier given the heavy traffic on mobile usage that the company currently experiences.

To cope with the congestion, Telstra had earlier revised its existing mobile plans, which would charge extra dollars to subscribers wishing to increase their data usage.

Analysts said the availability of the 700 MHz band would allow the country's telcos to speed up their mobile broadband services while at the same time deliver more revenues to the government by permitting access to the spectrum, which would become idle anyway as the switch off for analog TV signals get underway.

The phased accessibility would also jack up the sales price of the spectrum, which Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had already set for early 2013, industry watchers said.

Optus is in support of the Telstra initiative as the company is quoted by the newspaper as saying: "(The company) supports early access to the 700 MHz band to fast-track competitive access to 4G services in rural and regional areas."

It is understood that the two firms would want to tap the new spectrum by the first quarter of next year, if and when possible, which should be opened up region by region.

However, a third player, Vodafone, appears to be content "with the way the government is managing the spectrum availability issue," The Australian said.

The request for higher mobile broadband speed is in line with the exploding prevalence of mobile computing not only in Australia but in the rest of the world, which is largely due to the growing dominance of smartphones and tablet computers among global consumers.

The move was also made partly in response to the expected delays in the nationwide roll out of the national broadband network (NBN), which would have delivered faster internet access to Australia's regional areas.

As earlier admitted by NBN Co, the broadband project would suffer slight delays due to a number of hiccups, contractor issues among them, though the company insisted that the NBN targets remain generally on track.