Not so ready for service Often these delays are due to the fact that entire suburbs are declared NBN "Ready For Service" when some homes clearly aren't – especially in the cable rollout areas where only around half of homes have a lead-in from the HFC cable running down their street. Once these areas are declared Ready For Service, every home is told it can sign up for the NBN straight away, while people who move into the area are forced to shift to the NBN immediately. Newcomers, along with existing residents plagued by installation faults, are refused access to legacy broadband services like ADSL2+ or Telstra/Optus cable – even if they then need to wait months for an NBN installer or repair team. This deadlock is due to the Cease Sale regulations in the NBN rollout plan which say you can't go back to an old service once the NBN is available in your area. The ACCC has ruled that Cease Sale can be bypassed in these circumstances, but the consumer watchdog is often ignored and has no power to force NBN and the telcos to reconnect you to your old service. Of course when a retailer tries to connect a home which isn't really Ready For Service and something goes wrong then it all goes to hell and the blame game begins.

Breaking the deadlock After ignoring rollout issues for far too long, the telco industry's heavyweights have finally admitted they need to do better. They've committed to tackling NBN migration issues including handballing customer complaints, delaying installations and rescheduling appointments. As part of this overhaul, NBN is also changing its Ready For Service policies to reduce the likelihood of people suffering through long-running connection issues. Rather than simply declaring entire suburbs Ready For Service, NBN has introduced a Ready To Connect status which applies to individual homes. As of September 1, in an NBN cable area your home will only be declared Ready To Connect if you already have an HFC lead-in cable. If not, or if there is any other kind of connection issue, you'll be "ring-fenced" and declared Not Yet Ready To Connect. The downside of being declared Not Yet Ready To Connect is that you'll need to wait up to six months longer to get on the NBN – something which the NBN's critics have been quick to jump on as another failure. They're right, in that it's frustrating to see NBN adding even more homes to the "too hard" basket – although I'm told they'll be deemed Service Class 20, not Service Class 0.

The upside of being declared Not Yet Ready To Connect is that you know exactly where you stand. You won't waste months trying in vain to connect while NBN, your retailer and the toothless government regulators give you the runaround and even flat out lie to you about what's happening with your connection. Even better, NBN has confirmed that the Cease Sale regulations will not apply to homes declared Not Yet Ready To Connect, even if they are in a Ready For Service area. This is a big win for Australian consumers. It means you can reconnect to legacy broadband services while you wait for your NBN connection to be fixed and correctly activated, which will go a long way to breaking the broadband Catch 22 which has been leaving homes disconnected for months. So why has it taken so long? NBN underestimated the pent-up demand for new connections in the HFC cable broadband areas, in part caused by Telstra's refusal to connect many customers to cable and instead forcing them onto lowly DSL even though the cable ran past their front door. NBN isn't without fault, with a string of "false activation" and network configuration faults slowing down the HFC rollout.

Beyond these, there's been a reluctance by all involved to admit there was a problem or even acknowledge that the Cease Sale regulations have been an issue. In the pig-headed push to fast-track the NBN rollout at any cost, they made it clear they'd rather leave Australian homes cut off for months than concede defeat and put these homes back on legacy services. Were it not for the media spotlight, this situation could have dragged on for much longer. Until now, NBN and the retailers have been connecting HFC cable homes one by one as they sign up for an NBN service, and slowly dealing with connection faults as they arise. Now NBN has decided to take a more systematic approach. If you don't have a HFC lead-in you'll be declared Not Yet Ready To Connect and need to wait for the NBN to come along your street and fix every connection – allowing installers and repair crews to work more efficiently. It's true that being told you need to wait a few extra months to connect to the NBN sucks. But anyone who's been trapped in Australia's broadband limbo would tell you it's far better than spending those months arguing with NBN, your retailer, the ACCC, the ACMA, the TIO and the office of Communications Minister Mitch Fifield as to why you have no broadband – with all of them passing the buck and unable to break the deadlock. Has the NBN reached your neighbourhood? Did everything go plan?