Vocus Group chief executive Kevin Russell has criticised the wholesale prices charged by the $51 billion National Broadband Network as too high, allowing Telstra to dominate the market and leaving low-income households paying more.

Mr Russell criticised the NBN Co for being worth "far less than what it cost to build" at the annual Australian Communications Consumer Action Network conference in Sydney on Thursday morning .

"And because of this failure to recognise the underlying market value of the NBN, we're left in a situation where NBN's decision-making is driven as a monopoly targeting financial returns, rather than consumer needs and market reality," he said.

Vocus chief executive Kevin Russell has slammed the NBN's pricing. Credit:Steven Siewert

Vocus, which owns Dodo and iPrimus, is Australia's fourth-biggest NBN reseller with 8 per cent of the market and more than 450,000 customers. Telecommunications companies in the fixed line internet business have been under pressure, seeing their profits slump since the national broadband project began connecting customers.