The way Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) will be managed became much clearer this week, with the government signing contracts with two of Australia's biggest telecommunications companies.

It also put its plans to privatize the network through a sale to the highest bidder once the 10-year build is complete on the table, and received support from the United Nations for the deal on the project, costing AU$35.9bn.

No date has been nominated for the sale, which has raised concern from critics who fear it could create a monopoly in Australia's telecommunications market.

Optus has also signed up with the NBN Co to transfer its customers on to the lines in a deal valued at AU$800m.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said such commitments mean the NBN can be rolled out much faster, and its success secured with the backing of the two dominant market players.

Optus Chief Executive Paul Sullivan said it supported a single wholesale telecommunications network for Australia.

"We believe a wholesale NBN, along with structural reforms, will finally create a level playing field in fixed line services, it would realize significant benefits for regional Australian" O'Sullivan told the Australian newspaper.

The government had already signed up to use the infrastructure of Telstra, which is constructing the network, once it is complete.

The largest infrastructure project to be undertaken in the country to date, the NBN will offer homes and businesses connections of 1Gb per second.

As part of the project, a number of data centers have also been chosen to host data center operations, including the Polaris Data Centre in Queensland and Global Switch, which will host the NBN's primary data center in Ultimo, Sydney.