Telstra delays shareholder vote on NBN deal

Telstra has been forced to back away from the "ambitious" target to put a definitive agreement with NBN Co to shareholders by July 1, saying the timetable was "no longer practicable".

Chief executive David Thodey had told financial analysts last month that "key commercial terms" with NBN Co had been reached and the telco was on track to finalise a $9 billion post-tax deal with the Government-backed network builder.

The deal being negotiated was to provide NBN Co with access to Telstra's passive infrastructure (pits, ducts and backhaul fibre) and eliminate Telstra as a fixed-line wholesale competitor to the NBN.

But the timetable had unravelled, leaving Telstra "looking at options for an alternative meeting date", the telco advised the stock exchange today.

"[We] will advise shareholders once [we are] in a position to set the date of the meeting," Telstra said.

"There are statutory timeframes required for the necessary Ministerial, ACCC and Telstra extraordinary general meeting processes which means there is a minimum timeframe from the time the agreements are finalised to when a shareholder vote can occur.

"Given this, we have now reached the point where a 1 July meeting [with shareholders] is no longer practicable."

NBN Co chief Mike Quigley said the outstanding deal was "not impacting progress in NBN Co's First Release Sites, which are nearing the completion of their construction phase."

"NBN Co has been advising communities with Second Release Sites that both the Telstra deal and the ACCC decision on points of interconnect are now being factored into the timing of future rollouts," he said.