Does this sound familiar? Your son is making a hefty download of the latest video game while your daughter is watching YouTube videos and your wife is streaming a movie. Meanwhile, you’re trying to get some work done from home, and notice that your laptop’s internet connection seems to have slowed to a crawl when you attempt to Skype with a colleague. Before long, a bandwidth battle ensues over who’s a bandwidth hog and which online activities should get priority. As a reminder, bandwidth refers to the amount of data that may be transferred over an internet connection per second. Every internet connection has a specified maximum bandwidth—usually measured in megabits per second, such as 100 Mbps—and this bandwidth is shared by all the users and connected devices in a household. This includes background internet usage such as software that automatically updates. You can think of bandwidth as a highway with vehicles traveling on it; the highway is the internet connection and the vehicles are the data. The wider the highway, the more vehicles can travel on it at one time and the faster they get to their destinations. The same principle applies to data—the more bandwidth, the more information that can be transferred within a given amount of time. When your home’s bandwidth isn’t adequate for simultaneous use by several bandwidth hogs engaged in streaming, gaming, and video chatting, everyone in the family may experience slower internet speeds. That’s when frustrations can grow and bandwidth battles can occur. In the interest of promoting family harmony, BBC recommends you upgrade your internet plan. That way, you can all get the speed you need and won’t have to argue over who must curtail their online activity to free up bandwidth for someone else. BBC offers family-friendly internet plans with download speeds up to 1 Gig. To find out more, visit butler-bremer.com or call 319.276.4458. A Bit o’ Trivia About St. Patrick’s Day You may think of St. Patrick’s Day as simply a time to wear green and dine on corned beef and cabbage. But how much do you really know about St. Patrick and the holiday that honors him? Here’s a list of some interesting trivia: • St. Patrick was known as the Apostle to the Irish, for converting the nation to Christianity. • The Catholic Church has never officially canonized Patrick as an actual Saint. • The largest St. Patrick’s Day parade does not take place in Ireland, but rather in New York City, where about two million spectators turn out each year. • Guinness is the most popular Irish beer consumed on St. Patrick’s Day. • Congress proclaimed March as Irish-American Heritage Month in 1955. • Every year, the Chicago River is dyed green for the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. Speaking of green, you can save green on bill paying by not using checks and stamps. Sign up for BBC eBilling at butler-bremer.com. Don’t Let Bandwidth Hogs Cause Household Battles Cornerstone Group © 2023
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