Photos: Inside Telstra's nodes

The node which journalists were shown can handle a maximum of 384 customer lines. Telstra's idea was to have no house more than 800m away from a node within its five cities footprint, and no more than 1,500m away from the node everywhere else.

Those less than 800m from the node will be able to access speeds of 25-50Mbps, while bandwidth for those 1,500m from the node will top out at 20Mbps.

Each node takes two weeks to complete because first Telstra has to lay a concrete plinth which has conduits in it for the fibre and copper to pass through. The concrete has to cure before the node can be hooked into external power, fibre and copper.

Once completed, the cabinets won't be opened often because services could be provisioned remotely. In fact, every time the node is opened, an alert will be sent to a team responsible for monitoring the nodes 24/7.

The cabinets have been designed with harsh Australian conditions in mind. According to Telstra they have been shock tested, impact tested, temperature tested and ballistic tested — able to handle three shotgun blasts from a specified distance.

For those who are interested in correct nomenclature and exact positions, the picture above shows what is inside the cabinets.

The new next to the old. A cable of copper lines alongside a fibre bundle. Fibre will now run all the way to the new nodes.

People will have to be cut over to the network without disrupting their current services. That means cutting lines from pillars in the streets (pictured) to the nodes. Telstra called this "teeing in".

A line from the new cabinet is connected to the line between the home and the pillar using a plastic contraption such as this one. Once services are working over the new link, the line to the pillar can be cut.

The cut-over will take place in pits across the country, which remain hidden under concrete manholes across the city. The pits that journalists saw were "pristine", Winn was quick to say. Pits in the real world could have mud and even snakes lining their depths.