The smell of popcorn, sounds of bouncing balls, happy voices and squeaking sneakers fill your senses as you walk into the high school or elementary school gymnasium.

Athletes are warming up on the floor while parents, friends, and everyone else is precariously climbing the Mt. Everest of bleachers to find the “best” (very uncomfortable) seat in the house to watch their student-athletes perform.

This same scenario plays out nearly every night in thousands of schools all over the country. Whether the games are on the home court or at the neighboring rival’s school, parents cheer on their kiddos, and win or lose the unwavering support is always there.

While I was attending a recent game for my young student-athlete, I was soaking in the sights and sounds of an unfamiliar gym in a town about an hour away from home.

As the girls were warming up I exchanged some pleasantries with a few people sitting near me as they moved by to get to their seats. They were all there to support the home team and clearly saw I was wearing my maroon and white instead of their orange and black.

As the first match started, a proud mom with a toddler in tow moved into the row in front of me and quickly pulled out her phone to snap some photos of the game. When I noticed she wasn’t putting her phone down right away I realized she was taking a video instead.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed this as her little guy (who clearly wanted to play with the phone) asked what mom was doing. Her response was “I’m streaming this to grandma.”

Since I work for Wisper Internet, and I’m obviously a parent, this struck a chord on two levels. First, here we were in a small-town gymnasium, but we were still connected to the entire world. Second, the internet was responsible for allowing grandma to see their kiddo compete without ever leaving their homes.

Once I realized the mom was streaming, I did my best to subdue my cheering, (good luck with that) so I didn’t ruin her video. She smiled and said not to worry about it and she understood that was why we were both there in the first place.

We all think of the ‘big picture’ internet: work, entertainment, and school, when we think about the importance of the internet and staying connected. For me, this was “small picture” internet and how Wisper Internet has been connecting communities for nearly two decades.

On a personal, everyday level, connections online affect us on the most basic of levels without us even realizing it, like a simple chat with grandma. Man, I wish I could still have those, don’t you?

What can be more important than family? Imagine, a set of grandparents being able to cheer on their granddaughter through this amazing thing we call the internet from across town, or across the country. It may not seem like a big deal, but staying connected even on the mini-levels is more important than we can imagine.

These connections, big and small, are important to Wisper and always will be. We get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and sometimes we forget to stop and smell the popcorn. Wisper cares about small towns because that’s where we live too.

Oh, by the way, the maroon and white won!