Oh you have quite a few options available then. Yes, definitely shop around and see what you can find.

Ryan who runs Stratanet is a pretty good chap. 
I expect you will get good service through that.   

If your grandmother wanted a telephone line, she and her neighbor would nag their husbands.   
The husbands would go to the post office yard, pick up some cable and some poles, get on the tractor and run the line  themselves.   

These days people choose to be a keyboard warrior and complain or form some sort of lobby group rather than just do it themselves. "I am only 7kms from the exchange" - Thats actually a really really long distance. You would be lucky to get 64kbps across that. Its also only a cheap $350,000 at $50 a metre for directional drilling of fiber optic cable.   

I have always said i am happy to help a community that wants to help themselves. Even if its just building a fence to stock proof a hilltop repeater, or finding a landowner who wants to lease some suitable land at a reasonable rate. Even in hawkes bay we have people we know about that are waiting for the government or some big company to bring it to them and wont sign up with us because we arent Telecom and therefore it cant be good, yet high speed internet is actually available now to their house. 

Anyhow I am glad you found out about stratanet.