"As requirements come in, they are mapped to capabilities and mapped to platforms and therefore delivered on common software," Barnett says.

Freedom from legacy again rears its head. Rawlins and her team must build IT infrastructure in tandem with the network, leading to instances where sites in Tasmania and even on the mainland have been launched without final customer and billing systems. As a result, the company has undertaken to 'slice off' bits of equipment here and there to meet both short-term and long-term responsibilities. These include a temporary instance of SharePoint hosted in Microsoft's Singapore data centre and varied other Cloud providers chosen primarily to provide the flexibility NBN Co needs in its early days.

According to Barnett, the exercise is much like Christmas: "There are out of the box toys that you take out and use and there are out of the box toys that you're up until seven in the morning putting together.

"We are very focused on buying the things that get us as close to our needs, then configuring where we have to."

Despite the challenges ahead, Rawlins doesn't seem fazed. Even the extra pressures of the continued battle between clean slate infrastructure and the ingrained legacy of dozens of corporate cultures in one place doesn't appear to have prevented the wholesaler from forging ahead with billions of dollars worth of contracts. As the organisation grows into Australia's new wholesaler, it must balance the needs of both retail service providers and, however indirectly, end users.