NBN Co's first-year ICT budget hits $6.4m

NBN Co spent almost $6.4 million on communications and IT in the past financial year, according to its annual report released late Friday.

NBN Co recently reported "massive progress" in its IT infrastructure rollout as it started work on the first of two data centres and embarked on a second wave of recruitment to support its ambitious deployment program.

According to its first annual report, NBN Co had available a funding line of up to $2.139 billion from the Federal Government to allow it to meet contracted obligations.

Since the report was completed, NBN Co had taken a $350 million injection in July 2010 and expected to draw down another $350 million next month.

"The exact timing and quantum of Federal Government funding for NBN Co will be determined after the Government has formally responded to the implementation study and after finalisation of the definitive agreements with Telstra," the company said.

NBN Co chief Mike Quigley said that the company had "remaining contractual commitments totalling $197 million" at the end of June 2010. These commitments included the Tasmanian network rollout, designs for the first release sites on the mainland, IT costs and "creating our finance systems".

The company also revealed the scale of interest in working at NBN Co.

It had 207 full-time staff at the end of the financial year but received some 7,000 resumes.