Citi's Tim Smeallie and Phil Campbell have prepared an event-driven "what-if" analysis of the "elephant in the room", Communications Day reports. "The consensus seems to be that Telstra is in the box seat for the FttN project," Smeallie said.

Saying Telstra has the choice to "make love or make war", the analysts believe Telstra is more likely make war on the feds over the prospective joint-venture structure of the NBN, the level of return on investment and
any sub-loop unbundling regime.

But they maintain the "make love" approach could potentially leave Telstra in a better financial position.