Under the Coalition's pre-election NBN plans these homes without cable would have been last in line for the fibre network because HFC areas would have been a low priority. At least they would have got it eventually. Now they're in limbo, because the new-look NBN Co will be reluctant to run fibre to the premises or the node in these areas to cater for those homes which don't have access to the cable. Worst-case scenario they could be left to languish on ADSL2+ or some form of VDSL running all the way back to the exchange – which is of little comfort if the condition of the copper line is your biggest impediment to decent broadband access. As soon as it rains you'll be back on the National Broken Network. This isn't the case – every home in the HFC footprint will get a connection (a point I didn't make clear in the first version of this story). But judging by the horror stores from some HFC users there are times when you might wish you were back on copper.

The digital divide created by the haphazard cable rollouts even exists within streets. If you're on a multi-dwelling property, the Telstra and Optus cable networks would only connect to the front premises. Even if you're on a side-by-side divided block, chances are that only one home will be hooked up to the cable. This problem has become much worse in the last few years as more and more homes are torn down to build units. Once again, no amount of pleading will get the telco to hook you up to the cable. In many streets you'll find every second home has access to a 100 megabits-per-second (Mbps) cable connection while their neighbours are stuck with sub-5 Mbps DSL.

The idea of going back to connect all those overlooked homes to the HFC network isn't as straight-forward as you might think. We'll need a whole new round of negotiations for NBN Co to gain access to Telstra and Optus' cable networks, which aren't even open to wholesale access at this point. Retro-fitting an entire street with HFC connections could mean forcing every home to use Telstra or Optus as their ISP. This obviously isn't acceptable, but you can imagine how Telstra and Optus will behave at the negotiating table now they're holding a third of the country to ransom.

Today, Telstra and Optus have about 1 million HFC broadband subscribers, which reportedly represents a combined penetration rate of 36 per cent of premises. This means the new-look NBN could triple the number of users on the HFC networks in order to avoid running fibre to those areas. The government actually predicts that 3.4 million premises will end up on HFC under the new NBN plan. That's every home in the HFC footprint. Heaven help anyone stuck in those areas who was actually relying on the NBN to deliver more reliable broadband.

The logistics of adding around 2.5 million new premises to the HFC networks is a nightmare, but don't let the government dismiss this as a minor technical detail. If you want to look at the big picture, the real problem is that the HFC networks can't cope with the customers they already have. Unlike fibre or DSL, the speed of your HFC connection is at the mercy of the homes around you. Optus' HFC network already slows to a crawl during peak hour, as kids come home from school and hit the internet