This week’s shocking revelation:  I’m a book addict.

OK, for anyone who knows me, this is about as surprising as announcing that the sun came up in the East or that the Rockies aren’t going to the playoffs this year. (Dang it.) And my tastes are pretty wide-ranging: whether a volume is fantasy or science fiction, history or drama, long-time classic or last week’s bestseller, there’s a decent chance that it’ll catch my attention.

The challenge, of course, is shelf space. When you have lots of books, you need lots of bookshelves. And nightstands. And unused counter space. And … well, you get the idea. It’s great to have a lot of information, but if you want it to be accessible and usable, you need room.

Why bring this up? Because we’re seeing an explosion in the virtual world that makes my library look neat and orderly.

Some of you may remember the halcyon days of 2005, when YouTube was brand new and 40% of Americans still had dial-up internet. By 2021, internet traffic is expected to be 168 times greater than it was then. Around 80% of that is video – no surprise to a nation that streams a billion hours of content on Netflix every week – but more and more of daily life has climbed online as well, from thermostats to garage door openers.

That’s a lot of information. And it needs a good “shelf” to keep it all manageable. Online, that means a fast, reliable internet connection.

When we first built NextLight five years ago, people would sometimes ask us “Why would I need a gigabit connection?” I don’t hear that as much now. People have seen that our fast fiber isn’t just about doing one thing quickly, but about having the bandwidth to handle all the things in your online life without holding any of them up. It’s not just reading one book quickly, it’s about managing your whole library.

If you’re a NextLight customer, you already know what I’m talking about. If you’re not yet, check out what NextLight has to offer.

You just might find that it speaks volumes.