Australia threatens to tighten the screw on Telstra

The Australian government is threatening to stop Australian telecom major, Telstra from acquiring wireless spectrum even in case the political opposition parties delay a bill that aims to re-regulate the telecommunications sector.

The government has demanded that Telstra separate its retail and wholesale arms or forego expansion of its wireless services.

The opposition has meanwhile started working on plans to delay voting on the bill that would help the government achieve its aims.

The communications minister, Stephen Conroy has threatened to invoke the Radiocommunications Act to restrict Telstra's options citing the previous Howard government having used the act five times to impose restrictions on conditions for bidding in spectrum auctions.

But the opposition is alleging that the government is using political strong arm methods to break up Telstra in a desperate bid to grab the telco's assets for its own new National Broadband Network.

According to Nick Minchin, the opposition's communications spokesman, the government is not able to answer any questions related to the NBN for which it says it wants time until the implementation study that taxpayers have paid $25 million for. He added that if that was all the government could answer, then the legislation deserved to be delayed.