The phone system over here originally belonged to the government via PMG/Telecom Australia. Telecom went independent & renamed Telstra. Government maintained 51% share for many years in Telstra, but now owns 17%. Also see BigPond & Fibre in that link for a further understanding. The ISP's lease the lines basically from my understanding.

It's a complex arrangement. Will NBC do worse than Telstra? There's always the potential for government interference with censorship or monitoring, etc., just as before now.