Shares in Telecom NZ have fallen on the news it will likely be excluded from the first-round rollout of New Zealand's Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) project.
Crown Fibre Holdings, the company behind the rollout of the UFB, announced it has selected three companies for prioritized negotiations for the first stage of the build.
Power companies Alpine Energy and Northpower, and the Central North Island Fibre Consortium have been shortlisted.
“These three parties have displayed the best proposals including a combination of access prices, funding provisions, industry experience and financial backing,” Crown Fibre chairman Simon Allen said.
Telecom NZ has been shortlisted in all 33 candidate areas, but the company is just one of 11 other candidates not selected for priority discussions. Only one applicant - Canada's Axia NetMedia, an investor in Singapore’s NBN - has been excluded from the shortlist.
In a statement, Telecom NZ said it estimated that the three prioritized companies have a coverage area of around 12% of the New Zealand population, and that by comparison its proposal is national.