A Coalition decision to shelve national broadband network project will ''take Australia back to 2004'' and lengthen Telstra's hold on the market, Telstra's rivals say.

The Coalition has stated that it will abandon the national broadband project and liquidate NBN Co. if it gains power. It has not passed a detailed decision yet, but the Coalition is expected to finance subsidy plans for people in the broadband deadsopts and for more rigid competition regulations.

Analysts say substantial competition policy revision must push through if Telstra has not to split its retail and fixed wholesale businesses anymore.

NBN Co. had been given around $312 million from government funds, Mike Quigley, chief executive of the company, said.

The company has 287 employees, three offices, and has made public contracts worth $85 million with Alcatel-Lucent and granted construction contracts too five firms of an unknown worth for five trial sites in the mainland.

It has also discussed with 21 other firms to begin preparations for contract tenders to build the next stage of construction in the mainland.

''We are undertaking work in accordance with objectives the government has set for us, and therefore have not estimated the wind-up cost of the organisation,'' a spokeswoman from NBN said in the previous week.

''NBN Co has made a number of announcements in relation to contracts it has signed for the supply of services and equipment. These commitments can be met well within the envelope of equity funding provided to us by government,'' she added.

NBN Tasmania, a joint project between NBN and Aurora Energy, had been given government funds worth $100 million and had installed networks in three areas.

Those areas would still receive service if NBN Co. gets wound up.

The rivals of Telstra would deal with whoever gains the upper hand, but assert the NBN had the potential to transform Australian telecommunications.

''It will overcome the decade long incentive Telstra has had to delay and frustrate broadband competition,'' Maha Krishnapillai, Optus's director of government and corporate affairs, said.

''Optus is preparing ... for the sort of world and applications that would be attractive to customers in an NBN world,'' he stated.

''Cancelling the NBN is not an answer: it's a whole new problem,'' John Lindsay, Internode's general manager of regulatory and corporate affairs, added.

''Re-monopolising the Telstra access network is hardly going to solve a problem Telstra created and even Telstra has thrown its support behind the NBN.

''As the copper network continues to age, more ADSL and PSTN telephony subscribers will suffer faults, particularly during very wet and very hot weather,'' Mr. Lindsay remarked.

A spokeswoman for Telstra said they would not speculate over the election's outcome, and would ''continue working constructively with the government of the day''.