Isolation challenged by poor rural internet

Editor:
I am 13 years old and live here in Dunedin, and we have the worst internet ever. The internet is such an important thing for our family because my mom works from home, so does my dad when he’s here. It’s even more important since we have been self isolating. My brother has been trying to learn about science online, and my dad loves movies which can be hard to stream with the internet we’ve got. And me, I use the internet for a number of reasons – I have been doing all my schoolwork at home and I’m guessing online classes are going to start soon. I love music, I also like streaming movies and videos, like my dad. And I’m a gamer, who hopes to work in the computer sciences or tech someday.
We need high speed, unlimited internet so that my parents can work and so that I can follow my passion and excel at it. And it needs to be affordable – when me and my brother tried to play online games, we went over our internet Every. Single. Month. Our internet bills were $200-$300 every month for all of us to use the amount we needed. What we have is not enough for a family of four, especially if I have to now do my schoolwork online so I can have a future. I want to follow my passion to compete in online gaming. I want to watch movies with my family, and listen to music. And I want to stay safe in this pandemic. Rural internet needs to be fixed now!
Griffin Lucas,
Dunedin.