Dear Rstuart,

Of course anyone can make calls using VOIP, but as the call has to go through my telco, then I suppose that my telco would do everything it can to prevent low-level interference. With copper, I suppose there is some hardware that prevents anyone other than my telco itself from sending low-frequency analogue signals over my phone cable. In other words, you cannot talk directly to my receiver without making an eligible phone-call and you cannot listen to what I say to my mouth-piece unless you are on an eligible phone-call with me (or if you are the police with a legitimate warrant to access my telco's equipment).

How will this be handled by the NBN? I suppose that time-multiplexing in hardware could do the trick!

Dear Csteele,

"I will admit to being a little uncertain about the reasonableness of any concern about loosing a copper connection"

Nothing to do with the physical media, but rather with the "revolution" that comes with it: I want to keep my basic phone service without introducing the internet into my home.

I do believe that others too, even those who do use the internet at home, should be concerned that <if> xxxx WHEN the internet comes down, crashes or is severely compromized, possibly in a global cyber-war scenario which is likely do bring down the mobile network as well, they will still have a reliably working home-phone.

"your posts have got me thinking about a lady I know who by choice lives without running water and electricity at the end of 3 kms of copper wire."

That's admirable! I am not anywhere as pure as her. Do send her my warm congratulations.

@Shadow Minister: Considering that you yourself posted the link that itemised the usage of broadband by the majority of people, 90+% of which required comparatively low speeds and capacity.

Oh that. Those figures meaningless, as they aren't actual bandwidth measurements. If someone asks you "what does your household use the internet for" what are you going to say - so my son can play computer games? Or, me, playing Farmville? Or, exchanging pictures on facebook with my friends?

That aside, I am more familiar than most about what uses bandwidth, yet I could not tell you were most of my bandwidth usage actually goes. A survey of household mums has absolutely no hope of returning a meaningful statistics.

@Shadow Minister: I get 200GB at 12-20Mb/s plus telephone (incl all national calls) now for $60pm. Which is cheaper and better value than what the NBN will offer in 7-8 years.

I don't doubt your personal figures, but where on earth did you get the "Which is cheaper and better value than what the NBN will offer" from? Got a link?

@Shadow Minister: all information nationally and overseas would indicate a figure greater.

The information you gave didn't indicate that at all. Yes, you have shown wireless subscriptions are growing very strongly. But you did not show that land line broadband connections are dropping as a consequence! On the contrary even in the US where you say there is 25% wireless broadband, cable and ADSL continue to grow:

http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/articles/broadband-statistics-for-2010.html

According to that line they added some 3.3 million new subscribers in the US. In a country of 300 million, that would mean they would have to have added 2% of the countries households in 2010. If we have growth like the NBN will be a turn into a money tree for the government.

PS: I don't have the spare time time looking for quality (eg .gov) links. I just use the first page I find with easy to understand figures. If you put a little effort in Shadow, I am sure you can find something better.

@Yuyutsu: you cannot talk directly to my receiver without making an eligible phone-call and you cannot listen to what I say to my mouth-piece unless you are on an eligible phone-call with me

This has never been the case. Back in the old manual exchange days the operator listening in and overtalking on the conversation was all too common. Nowadays in the telecom pit on the roadside with two alligator clips and a $9 handset from Dick Smith can listen in, dial numbers and speak on your behalf. Australian telephone exchanges have been know to have lists "hot" numbers written on the walls, so a bored employee can occupy the time by doing just that. Decades ago an entire culture arose around telephone phreaking, doing what you are saying you are currently safe from.

And yes now, if you rang an office I administer (they use VOIP), I could listen to your call and say things on your behalf. Of course this should not be a surprise as just about every large company you ring warns you they are going to do just that. (My employer doesn't do this, as it happens.) Your telco can't do anything about it. And people who have the appropriate VOIP gear and telco links can make a call appear as if it is coming from you - regardless of where in the world it originates from. But then that isn't new either.

Things will improve very slightly with the NBN I suppose. The alligator clip trick won't work any more. In fact it is so hard to intercept fibre unnoticed a monitored fibre strand wound around valuable items is a very good security system.

Hundred up!

Try this:

"In the last 6 months of 2009, one of every four households (24.5%) did not have a landline telephone but did have at least one Wireless telephone. Approximately 22.9% of all adults (approximately 52 million adults) lived in households with only wireless telephones; 25.9% of all children (more than 19 million children) lived in households with only wireless telephones."

This is for 2009

For 2010

The number of American homes without a landline continues to grow, according to preliminary results from the January-June 2010 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). More than one of every four USA households (26.6%) had only wireless telephones during the first half of 2010--an increase of 2.1 percentage points since the second half of 2009.

States leading with wireless-only households include Arkansas (35.2%), Mississippi (35.1%), Texas (32.5%), North Dakota (32.3%), Idaho (31.7%), and Kentucky (31.5%).

So how can anyone claim that 13% for Australia is credible in 10 years.

As for buying mobile wireless broadband:

http://broadbandguide.com.au/mobile-broadband

The capacity has increased massively over 5 years and will probably equal whatever the NBN offers in 2020

@Shadow Minister: More than one of every four USA households (26.6%) had only wireless telephones ...

You missed the actual link Shadow, but that's OK as a quick search on the keywords pulls it up: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/wireless201012.htm Thanks for actually going to the trouble of digging it.

Nonetheless I don't understand the relevance. No one here disputes people are dropping their land line phones now they have mobiles. But we aren't discussing phone's. We are discussing broadband. Evidently people who don't bother getting a land line do continue to get a broadband connection.

Just to make it plain this is the case, consider this quote from http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/landline-phone-obsolete.htm

"As of late 2007, 16 percent of U.S. households had no landline whatsoever, compared to just 5 percent in 2004"

Yet despite drop, broadband connections were still climbing at the same time. In fact according to this page they doubled during that period:

http://www.internetworldstats.com/articles/art030.htm

Worse for your argument is this quote from the first link:

"Even businesses are ditching their wires for more economical options, like WiFi and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol). Ford's Detroit headquarters, for example, recently purchased 8,000 wireless phones for the staff and ripped up its landlines."

So yes, businesses are also ditching their analogue phone lines. But there are replacing them with VOIP routed over broadband. Actually people do that to. Quite a few of my friends haven't bothered getting a "land line", but they do have a VOIP phone for the odd time it is convenient to hand out a home phone number rather than a mobile.