And the NBN winner is...

Next week the government will announce the winning bidder for the build of the National Broadband Network. The announcement is expected when Kevin Rudd returns from the G20 in London.

So who will win? Optus is not too concerned, provided the outcome includes strong regulatory control of Telstra and some legislative change.

With fibre to the node likely to be a significant portion of the new network, the outcome is likely to involve rerouting Telstra's copper network, so it runs from the home to the node, rather than to the exchange. Would Telstra accept such a change lying down? And what about all of the ISPs with DSLAMs in exchanges that will be rendered useless, including Telstra's own ADSL2+ roll-out?

In this week's Twisted Wire Phil Dobbie talks at length to Maha Krishnapillai, director of government and corporate affairs for Optus, about what Optus is expecting from the NBN outcome and what it means for Telstra.

You'll also hear briefly from Telco analyst Paul Budde with his prediction on who will win the bid.

Does it sound like a good outcome? Add your thoughts in the Talkback section at the end of this post.