THE Federal Government has announced the "largest infrastructure decision in Australia's history" after deciding not to award the national broadband network contract to a company.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government would lead the development of a national fibre-to-the-home broadband network up to "100 times faster than what many people use now".
The ambitious project will take up to eight years, cost $43 billion, create tens of thousands of jobs and will see fibre-optic cable laid out to individual houses.
The fibre-optic network, providing speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, will cover 90 per cent of Australians, while the rest will have access to a mix of wireless and satellite connections.
Yey. Might take a while, but will be well worth it. It would make a mess of my current 200kb/s download speed ;l. Perhaps Australia won't have the slowest internet after all! Though at a cost of $40+ billion, tax payers may have to pay that.
