When the Commonwealth Games are over, Gold Coast businesses could have access to fibre internet connections ten times faster than anywhere else in Australia.

The Gold Coast's new $5.5 million, carrier-grade fibre network is currently being installed along the route of the city's light rail network.

The decision to build the council-owned network was taken after confirmation the NBN would not be fully installed until after the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

The council believes the speed of the cable could be the envy of the rest of Australia.

"NBN does about 10MB per second, this will do about 1GB per second," Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate says.

"The rest of Australia will be getting around on a Suzuki Jeepney but we will be getting around on the F12 Ferrari - that's the difference."

The cable they have chosen is known as spider web ribbon fibre, says City of Gold Coast digital city program manager Ian Hatton.

"Normally fibre is in a single strand. There's a piece of glass with a piece of rubber around it, to protect it, and you beam a laser through it, which is your data signal," Mr Hatton says.

"Ribbon fibre is in a strip of twelve. So, in terms of the speed of install, you do twelve instead of one at a time.

"In terms of performance, the glass that is used is the highest specification of any in the industry, and the company that provides it, AFL, is one of the global leaders in fibre technology."

Each strand of the Gold Coast cable can transmit about 70GB per second and the Gold Coast has installed 864 cores of fibre. In total that gives them more that 60,000GB per second.

"That's a huge amount of bandwidth," Mr Hatton says.

"In terms of what the Gold Coast requires, it's more than we need, so it is future proofed for the next 20 years."

When complete, the fibre-optic cable will stretch for 45 kilometres, from Griffith University and the Gold Coast University Hospital in the north to Coolangatta in the south and Helensvale in the west.

It will connect to the internet at three places. The digital connection will supply more bandwidth to the Gold Coast than any of the existing telecommunications carriers.

The council says it comes at minimal cost to ratepayers. The council has acquired a carrier licence and plans to lease about 75 per cent of the capacity to internet service providers to recoup the initial costs.

The network has the capacity to service up to 50,000 businesses.

Mr Tate estimates the council has saved up to 30 per cent on installation by utilising the existing light-rail construction.

"When we were building the light rail it was cost-effective to think 'lets put two more pipes in there," Mr Tate says.

"At the time, I knew we would be utilising it. When the technology of the high-quality fibre optics came into play it was a small investment to take us to the next level."

The public will get a taste of the network from March 2018 when free public WiFi is switched on at tourist hot spots.

It will enable visitors to live stream high-definition vision. During the games, the fibre network will also power up 550 CCTV cameras and the Commonwealth Games media centre.

Gold Coast businesses say the council's fibre internet is a game-changer for Queensland.

"Businesses assume they will be able to have world-class telecommunications and we haven't been able to offer that yet in Australia," says Di Dixon, project director of the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct.

The precinct, which includes Griffith University, the Institute for Glycomics and the Gold Coast hospital, is at the forefront of health research in Australia.

"Here in the precinct, we can now work in the global marketplace 24 hours a day, access and send files of particular sizes and look at things like remote and telehealth solutions, which are game changers in terms of healthcare globally."

Mr Hatton thinks other councils may follow suit once they see the difference good internet can make to a city.

"Other councils have started to look at getting a carrier licence for a future investment in fibre. But in terms of the scale of the network, and what we have already got, we are ahead of most. The signal that we are getting is that there will be an increase in this type of activity.

"We're hoping it will attract business. Anything from movies to medical to students is widely talked about. But really it's for any business that transfers a large amount of data."

"Our plan is to have the fastest and cheapest broadband in Australia by 2021."

AAP, in collaboration with the City of Gold Coast and Gold Coast Tourism, is publishing a range of newsworthy content in the lead-up to the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.