Australia's three major telcos are gearing up for a critical meeting with the federal government to hash out a plan to deal with the impending surge in traffic over the National Broadband Network and existing ADSL networks. The Department of Communications and the Arts is hosting the teleconference.

Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Hutchison executives, along with their counterparts at NBN Co, will be allowed 5 minutes each to state their concerns. The rest of the participants include executives from the telco industry body Communications Alliance and regulator ACMA, who will be in listen-only mode.

While the network resilience of the three major operators will be hot topic of discussion, the telcos will be keen to push the government for guidance on whether NBN Co could temporarily offer them more bandwidth at no extra charge.

Fixed broadband services are expected to come under pressure as companies start to telling staff to work from home, schools offering to stream lessons direct to students opting to stay at home and the expected surge in usage of streaming services like Netflix, Disney + and Stan.