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TelstraClear - Source: ONE News -
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Raising prices remains an option for telecommunication companies tasked with finding more than $250 million to help fund rural broadband upgrades.
But, while the plan looks set to cost the industry's main players, some smaller operators are already cashing in.
Minister for Communications and Information Technology Steven Joyce says the $300 million cost of getting broadband to the school desk will be paid by the telecommunication companies
But they are not ruling out putting up prices to cope.
Telstraclear's regulatory group manager Chris Abbott says inevitably it is a cost of doing business
"That is why our preference would've been for the government to centrally fund it through taxation," he says.
But he says at this stage it is too premature to say whether or not prices will rise.
It has already impacted on Telecom's share prices, which have dipped to a record low at news the company will need to find nearly $170 million to roll out the fibre.
Telecom has been quiet on whether it will raise prices, but a spokesperson said the money could not be plucked out of thin air.
Another provider who is waiting on more detail has taken a proactive approach
Communications company Farmside is trialling satellite broadband at Winchester School, one of the 3% of country schools that miss out under the fibre plan.
"We could roll out 10 megabits per second to rural schools within two months," says Farmside chief executive Tony Baird.
For Winchester School that is the good news. The bad news, as with the fibre plan, there is no timing yet on when or how these remote schools will be connected.
