Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): The Government is investing in rural and regional network capacity in order to increase connectivity and the wellbeing of isolated communities as New Zealand's economy recovers from COVID-19. I'd like to thank the Minister Shane Jones, who I worked with to announce a recent package which allocated $15 million for upgrading existing rural mobile towers which are at capacity, upgrading wireless backhaul which connects remote sites to central networks, and installing external antennas on households to improve coverage. This investment in rural capacity will allow the upgrade of existing mobile towers to bring broadband services to up to 8,000 households in areas where they have limited or no connectivity. The capacity upgrades can be implemented relatively quickly to provide urgently needed connectivity.