Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy in Senate Estimates this week. Conroy has said that the current copper service will be turned off as each home and business is connected to the NBN. He has reassured consumers that they will not be worse off by connecting to the NBN. But he said that, if they do not switch, then they will not have a phone line or access to ADSL broadband when the copper network is decommissioned. The NBN is being rolled out in Tasmania first. Connecting to the network there is optional and free initially. It is expected that there will be no cost to connect to the NBN initially when it is rolled out nationally.

But Senator Conroy has reiterated the government's intention to make it compulsory to connect to the NBN as it is being rolled out. "We are working our way through the issues with the states and ... we ultimately would consider, if we can't reach settlement, mandating it through the Federal Parliament. But we prefer to be engaged with the states," Senator Conroy said, speaking to this website at Parliament House yesterday. He added that the federal government had not "exhausted those conversations yet". He also said that the matter of a connection being mandated was "not a new issue". "[We've been] having a conversation with the states for over 12 months on this very issue," he said. "This is not a new issue. Malcolm Turnbull might have discovered it recently but it has actually been on the agenda. And we've actually been saying for quite some considerable time: as we disconnect the copper we'll be connecting the fibre." Last Friday, this website reported that it would cost up to $300 to connect to the NBN if a house or business did not consent to connecting to it as it was rolled out initially.

Connecting to the NBN is optional and free while it is being rolled out now in Tasmania. It is unclear if a cost will be involved after the initial roll-out in other states and territories. Conroy confirmed yesterday that a cost would be involved later if one did not consent to connect to the network initially. "If it remains optional and [if] people ... sell the house and someone else moves in, then it's like any other business where they say 'Hey, come and connect me to this' - then there's a connection fee to get it connected," he said. But if the network were to be mandatory to connect to then there would be no charge at a later date. "The question of what happens if someone decides not to take it up now and then we come back to do them and it becomes mandated then I don't believe there would be a charge," he said. "But the key is to get it attached to the side of the house so the costs are reduced for everybody involved."

Speaking to the ABC's Lateline program last night Conroy said: "There's this furphy that Malcolm Turnbull and others have been spreading recently that [when the NBN is rolled out] people are going lose their fixed line, [that] they're ... not [going to] be able to make a phone call. "[But] it's as complicated as you take the little jack at the end of the cord out of one hole and you plug it in to a different hole and you keep making your phone calls." He believed that if consumers only wanted a phone line, the costs on the NBN would be the same as they were on the current copper network, although he could not give a guarantee. "Well the final retail prices that are being offered are ultimately the retail service providers'. But the wholesale prices that are being negotiated with Telstra and are going to become part of the business case ... will be available in a few short weeks." He said there should be no increase in price to a person "who's sitting there, they don't have broadband, all they want to do is pick up the phone and make a phone call. So there should be no change in their circumstances."

Asked by Lateline presenter Tony Jones if he could guarantee that, Conroy said: "Well I believe that the pricing which we'll see in a few weeks will demonstrate that that is absolutely going to be the case." Jones also raised this website's report that it would cost up to $300 to connect if one did not connect initially. Jones said to Conroy: "You might think your old fixed-line telephone is good enough and you don't think you want an NBN computer access." Senator Conroy said "some" had suggested that it could be $300, "but that has not been a final decision made". "Now, in the case of where it becomes mandatory to make your phone call on the fibre because the copper's been disconnected, I can't imagine there's a case where you could say you should have to pay now to come and make the connection. The purpose of the roll-out is to ensure that people, if they have to make a phone call and it's only got the fibre available, I can't imagine there is any case to be made for there being that charge."

State governments will have to change trespass or property laws to ensure households are not left without fixed telephone connections, following the Tasmanian government's move to introduce legislation for property owners to opt out of the government's fibre network. NSW and Victoria have said they have no plans to introduce opt-out laws. "NSW currently has no plans to legislate an opt-out model for the NBN and will determine a final position following discussions with other jurisdictions," said a spokesman for the NSW Commerce Minister, Paul Lynch. Follow Georgina Robinson and Ben Grubb on Twitter