Have you noticed your internet connection seems a bit slower? With the holiday season ending, many of you likely received some shiny new tech and added devices to your home internet connection. As more devices connected to the internet are streaming data at the same time, this consumes more of your allotted bandwidth from your internet service provider. If things are starting to seem sluggish, you may need more bandwidth.

You’ll find many metaphors for the concept of bandwidth: a highway, a pipe, a hose. Basically, bandwidth is how big the path is for data to be exchanged from the internet to your individual computer. Using a highway as an example, as you add more lanes, more cars can move faster, right? Same with a pipe or hose. The bigger the hose, the more water can go through at a time.

Things like higher quality video resolution demand even more data. As 4K resolution video technology becomes more popular and regular, you may also find you need more bandwidth to meet the needs of the extra data required to generate such high-quality picture. Streaming services like Hulu require 13 megabits per second download speeds to generate 4k quality picture reliably - over double the rate required to generate a 1080p quality picture!

The same principle applies to video games. As modern multiplayer games are capable of performing more tasks at once, if you’re a gamer, this could lead you to need more bandwidth as well. All the movements of different characters and players are data that has to be transmitted. Without sufficient bandwidth, you’ll experience every online gamer's worst nightmare: lag.

To make certain your bandwidth requirements are met, call YK Communications to talk to an expert who can help determine if your current internet package fits your needs.