The Australian government has announced a A$250 million ($228m) project to build new fiber backbones to remote parts of the country.
Communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy said the government would fund the deployment of 6,000km of fiber from its regional backbone blackspots program.
He said the backbone links were the building blocks of the government’s still-unfunded National Broadband Network (NBN).
Conroy said the routes for the new links were chosen through a public consultation. The biggest part of the network stretches cross-country from Brisbane to Darwin in northern Australia.
Local telco NextGen, a subsidiary of listed construction firm Leighton Holdings, won the contract for the rollout in a competitive tender. It will maintain the network for the next five years.