In late February 2010 Farmside, in conjunction with the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Education, established a satellite delivered high-speed broadband trial for two rural primary schools.
Farmside installed satellite equipment at Haast School on the West Coast and Winchester Rural School in South Canterbury, allowing them to access satellite broadband at speeds of up to 10Mbps.
The trial was established to test the effectiveness of satellite delivered high-speed broadband as a way of allowing remote rural schools to access a wide range of services such as high quality video conferencing through to on-line applications such as Mathletics. High-speed broadband also allowed the schools to be fully integrated with a range of Ministry of Education services. These services are readily available to urban schools. 
