Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described it yesterday as the biggest infrastructure project in Australian history.

It would support up to 25,000 jobs for each of the eight years of the project and connect 90 per cent of Australians to super-fast broadband.

''We believe that fast broadband is absolutely essential for our nation's economic future. It is essential for long-term productivity growth, essential for our global economic competitiveness and for creating jobs for the future,'' Mr Rudd said.

''This new super-fast national broadband network is the single largest nation-building infrastructure project in Australia's history. It is the most ambitious far-reaching and long-term nation building infrastructure project ever undertaken by an Australian government.''

Central to the project is a fibre-to-the-home plan, which is far superior to the fibre-to-the-node option.

The National Broadband Network Corporation will bring 100megabit a second broadband to 90per cent of Australians, while the other 10per cent of Australians will get 12megabit broadband delivered by satellite and wireless technology.

The Government shocked the telecommunications industry yesterday with its decision to head up a public-private consortium and scrap the tender process. The five companies bidding to build the network had failed to meet the Government's expectations. TransACT, Optus, Canadian company Axia and Melbourne company Acacia all missed out.

The original plan was to deliver broadband services of up to 12 megabits per second to 98 per cent of the population.

However, the project will take eight years to complete, longer than the original scheme which had been expected to take five years, and will cost tens of billions of dollars more.

The Government's investment in the newly created company will be funded through the Building Australia Fund and the issuance of bonds. Private-sector investment will be capped at 49 per cent.

The new company means the Government's stake in the project will be much greater than the $4.7billion of taxpayer's money earmarked under the original plan.

For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times