The plan comes just a day after hints of a major new project were revealed through the appointment of former Palaszczuk Government minister Kate Jones to his privately owned Capitalb.

Known as HyperOne, the Slattery plan is for a 20,000km fibre network capable of carrying over 10,000 terabits a second – “more traffic than every other national backbone built in Australia’s history combined”.

Costing $1.5 billion, Slattery is yet to reveal how it would be funded. It also appears that the project would run in conjunction with the NBN and would be aimed at businesses with heavy data needs, such as cloud computing, data centres, environmental sciences, space vehicle launch, aerospace, satellite, defence.

It would also provide transmission to local distribution networks such as the National Broadband Network and mobile operators.

The project would include “off ramps” to regional and remote areas to provide a greater connectivity.

Discussions have already begun with the NBN and governments.

“HyperOne is big, bold and way overdue,”  Slattery said.

“HyperOne will be the first true private national fibre backbone project connecting major data hubs in every capital city in every state and territory across Australia.

“HyperOne will also create new major interconnection points for more international undersea cables into Australia from Asia and as far as the Americas and Antarctica.

“With the current geopolitical instability in the region there is unprecedented opportunity for Australia to become the region’s leading, secure and stable hub for future industries and jobs.

“HyperOne will be a new generation of hyperscaled network, capable of carrying over 10,000 terabits per second – more traffic than every other national backbone built in Australia’s history combined.”

“The current networks have served Australia well for the past 20 years but they are nearing the end of their useful life and they were designed for a different time,” he said.

“All the existing national transmission networks were built back when there was no Youtube, Netflix, social media, iPhones, or even cloud, let alone the future industries.

“They also didn’t address the digital divide in remote and regional Australia.

“That’s why we are adding more than 1000 “on-ramps” in regional and remote Australia enabling underserved communities and remote areas a cost-effective way to access HyperOne,” said Slattery.

HyperOne would use a variety of clean energy technologies such as solar and wind as well as carbon offset initiatives.

Furthermore, renewable energy will be one of the many industries to benefit from the increased capacity, speed and modern capabilities that this network will provide.

The plan was backed by Federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, Paul Fletcher who said the HyperOne would deliver a major boost in data transmission capacity into many cities and towns across Australia, which in turn would open up new economic opportunities, support new industries and generate jobs.

Slattery today also launched an online portal for interested companies to register their interest in partnering or working on the project.

“I want to see this project made by Australians for Australians,” said Slattery.

The HyperOne project office has already begun discussions with the National Broadband Network, the Northern Australian Infrastructure Fund, telecommunication companies, various market participants as well as the Federal Government and state governments.