Dear Rstuart,

"So you have an ADSL splitter, and only bring the voice side into the house. I don't know why you bother doing that - if the ADSL side isn't connected to an ISP it's pretty useless. It the same with the NBN actually. If you haven't arranged connected a service provider to one of its ports, the port is pretty useless."

But I do use ADSL: the low-frequency phone-line goes to the house and the high-frequency ADSL line goes into my office at the back of the house. The important thing is that it is impossible to use the internet through the phone sockets (excluding dial-up, which would not pose a problem in my case), say by unplugging the phone and plugging an ADSL modem/router instead. Also, because of the splitter it is not even possible to use phone sockets to passively spy on the internet traffic from the office.

You are right that at the moment, if you do not arrange an ISP, then the Telstra line by default is physically incapable of ADSL. I therefore took care to install the splitter BEFORE contracting my ISP (before that I used two separate lines, one solely for ADSL, the other solely for phone, with no ADSL capability).

But how can this be accomplished with the NBN where all lines come ADSL-enabled with no exception? How can I be assured that it will be possible to have phone sockets where no access to high-frequency internet-traffic will be possible whatsoever, no matter what you plug into those sockets? I suppose that if the NBN allowed me to retain my existing copper-phone wirings at home, then I could install a similar splitter to isolate my phones from the internet. I wonder whether that would be possible?

"Glass fibre is useless if there is a power failure in the home, whereas existing copper can guarantee phone capacity in emergencies."

Not so. There is an option to have battery back-up for the NBN hardware. Many people already have cordless phones in to home now and they are useless during power outages.

Also the technology is not "old".

Speeds are dependent on changing the hardware at either end - the fibre stays the same and the current Terrabyte transfers being achieved are being done over (gasp) fibre. Wireless will never reach anything remotely near these speeds.

Rache,

Fibre optics were developed in the 70s, and I first worked with them in the 80s. In 2001 I installed a 10Gb/s industrial fibre network with 1Gb/s copper branch networks. The philosophy was that fibre was faster but far more expensive, and copper was simpler and far cheaper for the majority of connections.

I am busy building a large industrial plant at the moment where the exact same philosophy is being used. Terminating fibre is still far more expensive than copper, and needs far more protection.

Although our main network and phones coming in is fibre, we still are required by law to use copper for the emergency fire phones, and for the lifts, precisely because battery back up is not considered sufficiently reliable.

While wireless will probably never reach the speeds that fibre does, it will easily reach the speeds the home user needs.

Fibre on the other hand will never achieve the mobility that most people will demand in the future.

@Yuyutsu: But how can this be accomplished with the NBN where all lines come ADSL-enabled with no exception?

They aren't all enabled for ADSL. Two of the six ports are RJ-12's, meaning you can only plug analogue phones into them, not computer networks. Here is a picture:

http://j.mp/lcMML7

That aside, currently the back end connection to your ISP is usually authenticated, meaning you have to enter an account name and password into your router / modem before you can connect to the internet. This presents a significant hurdle to someone planning to take over your connection by replacing your networking plug with theirs. They can't do that without knowing the user name and password.

I don't know whether ISP's using the NBN will require you to do that. If they do I have trouble seeing any difference between your current ADSL connection and the NBN. Whether they do or don't really doesn't have much to do with the NBN though. There are ISP's (were? - GIL is the only one I remember, and their gone) out there didn't require you to authenticate for an ADSL connection.

By the by, even if everything was as you imagine, it is still possible isolate your house and office networks even though they eventually get combined by a router and go over the same wire. In larger enterprises it is very common thing to do. In fact that is all that is NBN box doing. The point is if it didn't do it, you could buy a box for under $200 dollars and do it yourself.

@Shadow Minister: we still are required by law to use copper for the emergency fire phones, and for the lifts, precisely because battery back up is not considered sufficiently reliable.

I heard a Telstra technician describe how the network failed during this years Queensland floods. It went like this:

1. People with wireless home phones needing 240v connected to a land line went out first, as the power failed.

2. The land lines died a few days later as the batteries in the exchanges discharged.

3. It turned out while mobile phone towers if anything went down faster than the exchanges, but multiple towers usually cover one spot and mobile phones could move around to find another one so they could remain connected. That ended when the batteries in the mobile phones went flat. A smartphone only last maybe a day, going offline faster than the exchange batteries. But a dumb phones did really well, lasting a week or so.

4. If you had a car charger for your mobile phone, plenty of petrol and a car on high ground, you were best off. In fact most people in this position outlasted the floods.

Those building regs you quote rank 2nd worst on that list. Perhaps they aren't ageing too gracefully.

@Shadow Minister: Fibre on the other hand will never achieve the mobility that most people will demand in the future.

Know something about the future the rest of us don't? Maybe those unbeknowns to the rest of us, those fire alarms of yours are going to grow legs and start moving, or our 55" TV's are going to become portable? Or maybe all those other services we use that require 30 minutes of our time to transfer to a new residence - electricity, water, gas, rubbish, schools are going to be victims of this new mobile future as well?

So Shadow, what next? Do we wait with bated breath for you to regurgitate a few more nonsensical Abbott sound bites? Abbott is a bright guy. If his public statements reflected that, he might attract a few more voters.

Thank you so much, Rstuart,

As long as there is an "ordinary" analogue port in the NBN, where I can connect my existing phones, I think I'll be OK. Although I wouldn't trust those people that high-frequency internet traffic will not be possible over the analogue connection (it is possible now, as ADSL, so why would they disable it?), I could simply, just in case, place a frequency-splitter just as I now do at the RJ-12 port of the NBN.

I suppose I'll still have to replace my existing ADSL router (and re-program the new one as it's also used as a firewall to block all advertising sites!), because it expects a copper ADSL connection, wouldn't I? Just wondered whether I could instead use the second RJ-12 port for ADSL? Now I suppose many others wouldn't like to replace their routers, so perhaps the government will provide an ADSL capability over the RJ-12's after all, and then the splitter on the first line will indeed be necessary!

Or would there perhaps be a small device that converts the Ethernet signal into ADSL on a short copper wire so that existing routers can still work?