Correction: we incorrectly reported that NBN Co had paid NBN Consulting $4,000 for the nbnco.com.au domain name and that NBN Consulting was led by telecommunications analyst Paul Budde. In fact, no money changed hands for the domain name.
In addition, the firm is owned by Chris Worrad. Budde has clarified that he has no financial relationship or contract with the firm, other than that he is available to assist them with consulting work if they request it and he consents, which has not occurred during the firm's operation.
update The National Broadband Network Company is now in possession of the nbnco.com.au web address after a consultancy led by Chris Worrad allocated the domain name to the government-owned entity.
The NBN Co in recent weeks launched an interim website at the address, replacing an earlier but unrelated consultancy website. A Google cache shows that a website for NBN Consulting had previously held the domain. A Communications Day report from September revealed that NBN Consulting was formed by Worrad and others associated with the Digital Economy Industry Working Group which telecommunications analyst Paul Budde was instrumental in forming.
"NBN Consulting operated legitimately under the www.nbnco.com.au domain name until the Government's NBN corporation was officially named. It was then obvious that it would be more appropriate for the domain to be transferred to NBN Co Ltd ... so it was," said Worrad.
"No money has, or will, change hands in relation to the matter. The transfer was 'free and unconditional'." Any costs involved in the transfer were absorbed by the consulting firm.
The NBN Consulting cached page states "NBN Consulting's mission is to be the interface between the National Broadband Corporation and access to the network. Our primary focus is the NBN."
The vast majority of current interim site functionality is within the jobs.nbnco.com.au subdomain, which is currently showing three jobs. All three positions are for general manager roles: one for test environment, technology supplier liaison, and network architecture. The general managers will report to NBN Co CTO, Gary McLaren, and are located within Melbourne.
A page showing the NBN Co upper management, and legal and privacy statements complete the current site.
The site states that a new website will appear in January 2010, and invites users to register for email notification of the event. Trying to access former NBN Consulting pages today results in a standard 404 error that reveals that the interim NBN Co website is built upon a Microsoft ASP.NET stack.
"The cost of registering Australian domain names is typically less than $100, depending on how long they are licensed for."
you mean, like, either 2 years, or um, 2 years?
The interesting thing to mention in this rather poor article is when was it first registered?
And they shouldn't have gone for a .com.au address anyway, it should be a .net.au.