This Friday 14 August, nearly 30,000 homes and businesses around Australia that have had fibre to the premises NBN installed in their area will lose their copper connections.

These households are in Cairns, Coffs Harbour, Wollongong, Western Sydney, Ballarat, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Mandurah, and Geraldton. Anyone in the affected areas who has not placed an order for an NBN service will have their phone lines disconnected within ten working days.

Problem is, it is an opt-in system, not an opt-out system – it is up to the householder to effect the change. That means many people will miss out – they simply haven’t got around to it, or they don’t know about it.

Since May 2014 NBN has progressively announced areas that have reached the deadline for ageing copper telephone networks to be disconnected permanently as part of the move to the NBN. More than 175,000 premises throughout Australia hit the disconnection deadline so far this year – more than three times as many as in all of last year.

NBN reseller iiNet is doing more than anyone else to flag the problems this is causing. It has more than 60,000 customers already using the NBN. iiNet NBN product manager Rachael McIntyre said consumers need to act quickly.

"While phone and Internet services may not stop working on that date, they will within days, so it really is time for people to upgrade to the NBN,” she says. “Households or businesses still relying on the old phone network need to choose either to switch across to the NBN or to go mobile-only.

McIntyre says people who had not yet moved to the NBN needed to make a number of decisions. “Firstly, they must choose whether they want an Internet access service, a phone service or both.

Secondly, if they use services such as faxes, monitored security alarms, Priority Assistance Services or EFTPOS terminals, they need to speak to the providers of these services to confirm they work on the NBN. The third step is to select the NBN Retail Service Provider, like iiNet, that best meets their needs, in terms of product, pricing and customer service. People do need make the choice. We really want to ensure they don’t risk losing their phone and Internet service before they get the NBN connected.”

iiNet has developed a list of Frequently Asked Questions about the NBN copper cutoff deadline, available here.