Govt calls in advisors over NBN reformat

The Department of Communications is seeking consultants to help negotiate the commercial aspects of "revised arrangements" required between the Commonwealth, NBN Co and Telstra as part of the Abbott Government's plan to radically alter the NBN.

Assistant secretary Phil Smith said in a brief tender filing today that the department wants to appoint a "commercial and strategic advisor" as it approaches the reformatting of the National Broadband Network project.

Consideration of revised arrangements between the Government, NBN Co and Telstra form a key part of the 60-day strategic review that is being conducted by NBN Co.

NBN Co this month called in its own band of advisory firms to assist with various aspects of the strategic review process.

Applications to provide services directly to the Department of Communications close on November 11.

Telstra said earlier this month there would "undoubtedly" need to be changes made to the definitive agreements between Telstra and NBN Co in order to facilitate the NBN policy change driven by the new federal government.

Those changes are likely to include handing NBN Co new usage rights for the copper network as well as new cutover mechanisms to transition customers from copper to fibre-to-the-node services, Telstra's lead renegotiator Tony Warren said.