Remote work is no longer a temporary fix or a passing trend. For millions of professionals, it has become a permanent way of life. Meetings happen over video, files move back and forth through the cloud, and entire businesses are run from kitchen tables, spare bedrooms and converted dens. For that to work, home internet service has to shoulder more weight than ever before.

Anyone who’s had a screen freeze in the middle of a match or watched a stream buffer during a critical moment in online gameplay knows the frustration of unreliable WiFi. In gaming and streaming, milliseconds matter. Traditional home networks weren’t designed with that kind of demand in mind.

Most households still rely on a single router to push a signal through walls and floors. That works fine when you’re nearby, but a setup in the basement or an upstairs room can mean lag, buffering or even dropped connections. Add in the strain of multiple devices — phones, tablets, smart TVs, consoles — and the system starts to show its limits.

For kids, the internet is a place of discovery. It’s where they stream shows, play games, finish homework and talk to friends. But it’s also where distractions and risks can slip through unnoticed. Parents today face the constant task of balancing openness with oversight — giving their children the freedom to explore while keeping a watchful eye on how they use that freedom.

The challenge is that most home networks weren’t built with families in mind. Traditional WiFi systems provide little more than a signal and a password, leaving parents with few ways to set boundaries or monitor activity. As the number of connected devices in the average home has grown, so has the need for tools that help families manage their digital lives.

If you’ve ever walked from one room to another and watched your WiFi signal drop midstream, you’ve experienced the limits of traditional WiFi.

While older generations of WiFi were based around a single router in one corner of the house, mesh WiFi technology combines multiple, overlapping access points to blanket every room, so your video call in the kitchen is just as smooth as your streaming movie in the bedroom.

The internet connection running into your house is only as good as the signal you get once it’s inside. That last step — from fiber-optic cable to all your connected devices via WiFi — is often where speed gives way to dead zones and dropped calls.

But Connect WiFi, C Spire’s new managed home network service powered by the Amazon eero system, is closing the gap for good.

By the time you’ve found your freshman dorm or apartment, dragged your mini-fridge up three flights of stairs, and met the roommate whose sleep schedule opposes yours in every way, you’ll already be playing catch-up — syllabi are flying, Canvas is blinking with due dates, and your group chat for Intro to Psych is asking where the quiz link went.

Now imagine doing all that on a sketchy connection that buckles when the WiFi gets crowded.