Optus is funding an international satellite start-up that could bring wireless speeds greater than those proposed for the National Broadband Network.

Optus has partnered with British firm Laser Light’s Halo Communications System — which will transmit data using optical spectrum instead of radio frequency.

The engineers say the system should be able to deliver download and upload speeds up to 100 gigabits per second.

“As the bandwidth requirement continues to extend, this has the opportunity to deliver higher bandwidth to anywhere in the country. It would be like having a cable to absolutely anywhere in the country. It’s early days but it’s very exciting,” Optus’s head of ­satellite, Paul Sheridan, told The Australian.

Laser Light plans to launch eight to 12 satellites, beginning in 2018, into medium Earth orbit.

These will connect with up to 100 ground nodes in a lattice of fibre-optic links.

The high-tech approach should let them create wide-area networks in hard to reach areas.

But the technology will probably not be connecting homes anytime soon – its proposed applications so far include acting as redundancy for the undersea broadband cables and supporting high-bandwidth business applications.

Optus expects the service to be of interest to government agencies, which require high-bandwidth applications, and is getting ready to make some serious sales in the future.

“We’d be a primary access point for the country and then we would lease and sell capacity under wholesale services to anyone in Australia who wanted it,” Mr Sheridan said.

Currently, Optus runs a fleet of satellites for the transmission of television signals for Foxtel, ABC and SBS.

The company has been providing NBN Co with interim satellite services as well.

Mr Sheridan told reporters that the “terrestrial ubiquity” of internet access is still a big threat to any current or future satellite service, but the company hopes that the shift to high-definition television broadcasts and digital streaming will underpin more growth.

“The majority of growth comes out of broadcast still. It has over the last 30 years,” he said.

“I think this satellite business will continue to make a hell of a lot of sense in Australia just by virtue of the size of the country.”