Columns by Leslie Ellis

By Leslie Ellis and Sara Dirkse

In case you’ve managed to forget the tragic tale of Aereo, brace for some flashbacks. Aereo founder Chet Kanojia announced last week that he is introducing a new Internet service – called “Starry” – that uses millimeter wave technology to wirelessly deliver Internet speeds up to 1GB. Kanojia aims to disrupt the business of broadband with this latest venture, a new take on fixed wireless technology.

“It costs the cable guys around $2,500 per home to deal with the construction costs of laying down cable,” said Kanojia on a Jan. 27 phone call with TechCrunch, setting the scene for his next big reveal. “And beyond cost, there are regulatory hurdles that slow down the process.”

We can’t really speak for the legal or regulatory challenges Starry might face (thank the heavens and – heh-heh! – stars), but it’s probably safe to assume that ISPs are already all over it. However, on the latest episode of Re/code Decode with Peter Kafka, Kanojia shared a more optimistic view. “Comcast isn’t going out of business,” he said when asked if he expected another legal challenge. “It is better for them to have a few small competitors in the market so that the government is satisfied.”

Potential legal battles aside, it appears Starry might face some challenges on the technical front too. Re/code’s Ina Fried put together a great analysis of some of the technical stumbling blocks that Starry might face, based on issues that plagued similar ventures in the past.

Here’s the basics: Starry uses technology called “millimeter wave band active phased array technology.” This being Translation Please, indulge us in doing what we endeavor to do.

Starry Beam rooftop module (Image credit: Engadget)

In a nutshell, Starry puts a bunch of little nodes called “Starry Beams” on rooftops in densely populated areas (this might ring a bell with anyone who used Aereo), and gives its customers little receivers called “Starry Points” to stick outside of a window.

Starry Point window receiver (Image credit: Engadget)

The Starry Beam shoots out millimeter waves in a bunch of different directions (this is what they mean by “active phased array”), and these waves bounce off of buildings and other obstacles until they reach your Starry Point. Aereo claims that they can transmit a reliable signal without line-of-sight from the node to the receiver, unlike previous attempts at fixed wireless Internet.

Aereo also offers the optional Starry Station, a $349 Android-powered router with a touchscreen that monitors its own connections, handles parental controls, and a bunch of other tricks.

The (optional) Starry Station (Image credit: Engadget)

According to Kanojia, this approach will save Starry, and its customers, a lot of time and money. “We can deliver faster broadband with no regulatory wait time and it will cost us only $25 per home,” he said on the TechCrunch call.

No word yet on pricing, other than that Starry will be a tiered service based on speed (topping out at 1 GB up and down).

Chet isn’t alone in the landscape of wireless startups targeting larger ISPs. Two San Francisco-based companies, Artemis Networks and Webpass, are working together on a similar service. This one is particularly interesting because Artemis claims to have invented a way to use interference as a channel for transmitting and receiving data – so the more interference, the better the connection. (It all sounds so … Hedy Lamarr!)

We can’t wait to see this one in action – and according to Artemis founder Steve Perlman (yes, that Steve Perlman — former head of WebTV, Rearden Steel and Moxi), we might see it in Boston later this year (assuming the FCC gives the nod).

Plus, Chet’s just an interesting guy to keep an eye on. He started out in cable, founding Navic Networks in the early 2000s. Remember? Microsoft  bought Navic in 2008 for a reported $250 million; Chet’s been throwing wrenches at the industry that launched him ever since. Which makes us wonder: Who pissed Chet Kanojia off so bad?

Sandbox. Another everyday noun stepping out in different stripes, especially amongst Software People.

Here it is as a verb, from a recent batch of notes: “When you’re sandboxing, you’re allowing people to fail without killing anything.”

And as an adjective: “It’s more of a sandbox-y thing than a bag of tools.”

On the surface, the notion of a “software sandbox” is perhaps obvious. It’s a place where developers can try out their code, using the same raw resources as a production environment, but without causing anything in production to break.

Why the sandbox is of increasing importance in broadband technology circles is perhaps less obvious. To get the head around it, point toward open source software, as a staple in the transition to all-IP (Internet Protocol) everything.

Let’s say we all agree that a) it’s a software world anymore.  And that b) next-gen competitors who grew up on broadband just move faster. Lastly, that OTT competitors move faster, in part because they live on open source software, and make it easy for developers to try stuff out.

In other words, they sandbox.

Let’s further say we agree with the one about “if you can’t beat’em, join’em.”

So far, in the realm of what we used to call “cable,” most sandboxing happens at the interactions of “old” and “new,” also known as “now” and “next,” and especially with back office stuff. For instance, maybe you want to experiment with how people navigate video. One option: Build some kind of software-based emulator, so that developers can work within a semi-real environment.

Another option: Create a sandbox that links developers into the live elements of the back office that really do link to video navigation — the billing system, the conditional access/encryption components, the provisioning experience, as three of several examples. Developers can develop away, without damaging anything happening live, in the back office.

As for whether the software sandbox ever encounters gifts akin to what cats leave in sandboxes? In practice, developers usually get their own sandboxes, electronically cordoned off from anybody else writing code. Which is good, because there’s not any actual sand.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

OpenStack. In computing, and especially distributed computing, it’s a staple, in conversation and in workflow. People tend to elevator-pitch it as “an open operating system for the cloud,” “Linux on steroids,” and “a framework based around open source software.”

As one software aficionado put it: “It’s a bunch of scripts (translation: instructions) that help create clouds and virtual machines to deploy file systems and storage and a bunch of other stuff.”

Getting clearer? Here’s more. It started in July of 2010 as a collaborative project between NASA and Rackspace, with a goal of making it easier to use regular, off-the-shelf computing hardware to handle public and private cloud activities.

Last month, Time Warner Cable posted a tech blog titled “One Year Later: Setting Up OpenStack at TWC,” penned by its lead “stacker,” Matt Haines (real title: VP, Cloud Engineering and Ops.) In it, he describes how his agile team “designed and deployed an enterprise-grade cloud,” using OpenStack, in its two national data centers.

Comcast began its OpenStack cloud work three years ago, in 2012, to support its X1 rollout — navigation first, then apps, and now video (it’s what’s behind “cloud DVR.”)

Both providers settled on OpenStack as an alternative to buying proprietary set-tops, control components, and servers from the same company. Troubleshooting gets easier, they submit. Rolling out new services, features and bug-fixes gets (way, way) faster.

It’s worth pointing out here that the long-held industrial fears about open anything are rapidly melting away. No longer are concerns about mad coders “doing harm to the network” a definitive reason to not take an open source route.

More, the tech mantra today is one of “disrupt, or be disrupted.”

The vendor community, always in a weird spot when their customers decide to lean toward “build” vs. “buy,” is following suit. Cisco, during the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, heavily emphasized its investment in, and development of, Openstack-based components for multichannel video providers.

It follows that OpenStack is behind all the tech talk about “transparency,” and the tales about how this-or-that was about to go kaflooey, but because they had visibility into the software (which always comes in “stacks”), they fixed it (in hours, not months), averting disaster. Anecdotes like this abound in OpenStack speak.

Everything about OpenStack is open, even how papers are vetted for its annual conferences, which attract around 5,000 attendees, twice a year, for five days. (The “stackers” met in Atlanta and Paris last year.) For the Paris confab, in November, 1,100 papers were submitted for consideration (by contrast, cable’s tech events typically attract around 300 papers, vetted by committee.) The entire OpenStack community voted on who spoke.

As “open” stuff goes, OpenStack is decidedly one to know. They meet again in Vancouver, from May 18-22; on any given day, regional groups host meet-ups all over the world. Time to get your stack on.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

Sandy Howe, Senior VP of Global Marketing for Arris and honoree in the 2015 class of Multichannel News Wonder Women, owns the “flawless follow-up” as her strongest Super Power.

So say her customers and colleagues around the industry, recounting tale after tale of something gone awry, and how Howe’s trademark blend of empathy and tenacity got it resolved.

“She has this impeccable follow up,” said Nomi Bergman, President of Bright House Networks. “She’s 100% on the mark with it, every time.”

“Tenacity and determination are two of the qualities for which Sandy is best known,” said Bob Stanzione, Chairman and CEO of Arris. “With over 20 years of experience in optical, routing and switching product development, she’s played an important role in some of the largest U.S. cable deployments.”

“Sandy Howe is among the very best account representatives I have ever dealt with, and I’ve worked with many,” said Kevin Leddy, Executive VP of Technology Policy and Product Development for Time Warner Cable. “She does her homework and often understands our company better than we do — her follow up is exceptional.”

And, her colleagues noted, it’s easier to see a person’s true colors in times of distress than when everything’s working fine — like the time when an equipment malfunction bricked a large number of in-home devices she’d sold to a major customer.  Howe saw the problem through, doggedly connecting answers with questions, until everything was fixed, and everyone satisfied.

“Her genuine interest in her customers is what really resonates,” said Joe Quane, who hired Howe into then-Scientific-Atlanta, in 1999. “It’s her effervescent personality and genuine enthusiasm.”

Pennsylvania Roots

Howe grew up near the “happy valley” that is State College, Pa., graduating from Penn State in 1994 with a B.S. in Education. After a career fair landed her the job offer in what she thought was her vocation of choice — fashion merchandising — she came to the depressing conclusion that it wasn’t for her after all.

“I was devastated and I called my dad — what am I going to do?” Howe recalls. “He said, ‘go into technical sales and know it better than any man in the room.’”

To get sales experience, she landed a job at American Greeting Cards, with a company car and 35 direct reports.

Serendipitously, a small tech startup — Broadband Networks Inc. (BNI), a maker of the opto-electronics used in cable’s hybrid-fiber coax architectures — occupied the duplex upstairs. Soon enough, Howe, at 22, was offered a job in national technical sales.

“I called home, and this time my mom answered,” Howe said. “I said, I have this offer from this tiny tech company, should I do it?’ She said, ‘are you crazy? It’s technical sales, get it on your resume.’”

Five years later, after BNI was purchased, Howe started planning her next move. “I’d been reading about General Instrument and Scientific Atlanta in Multichannel News and thought, now’s the time to work at a big company.” In 1999, she joined S-A as an account manager to oversee the digital services launch at Time Warner Cable, for its Carolinas territory.

She immediately made an impact, Quane noted, converting what at the time was “100% Pioneer” set-top box territory over to S-A. From there, she rose quickly, ascending over the next decade to Director of the company’s Business Development team.

In 2009, Howe joined Arris as Senior VP of Strategic Market Development. Her background in sales, buttressed by a loyal customer base, made it an easy shift. “I believe I understand better than most just what it’s like out there, and what tools salespeople need to be successful,” Howe explains.

Her sizable fan base agrees. “I remember when Sandy went to Arris, how happy I was for her — and for Suddenlink,” said Terry Cordova, its CTO. “We now had an insider who, when needed, would ‘jump in front of the charging bull’ for us, to rectify any issues.”

“Other suppliers could learn a lot from Sandy,” added Time Warner Cable’s Leddy.

Last year, Howe shouldered a fresh set of challenges, as newly minted Senior VP of Global Marketing for the manufacturer. By August, she’d turned a corporate desire for consumer brand recognition into an Arris sponsorship of NASCAR racer Carl Edwards, and NASCAR’s first Mexican driver, Daniel Suarez. “The project plan has over 200 items,” she explained, including photo shoots, events, branding 1500 items, and merchandising.

Beyond her day job, Howe is a deeply committed industry volunteer, “especially when it comes to diversity and inclusion.” She serves in several WICT chapters and on the national WICT board, and participates in countless chapter and national events for the SCTE.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working within the orbit of Sandy Howe for the past two decades,” said Sean Bratches, EVP of Sales and Marketing for ESPN. “She gives her time and her expertise willingly, and we are all better for it.”

When she’s not leading the marketing team at Arris, Howe is either sailing or relaxing on the beach in Wilmington, N.C. with husband Peter, whom she met during a pickup beach volleyball game in 2002. “You can find me almost every Saturday at 5 p.m. for cocktails at the beach house,” she laughs.

Which makes her personal credo all the more apt: “A pessimist expects the wind not to change; an optimist thinks the wind will change — but a realist adjusts the sails.”

This profile originally appeared in the Wonder Woman Class of 2015 Special Feature of Multichannel News.

Here’s a way to let the imagination run wild: Think about your stuff that’s equipped with a web browser.

Now imagine being able to talk to people, using that stuff.

That’s the allure of webRTC, where the “RTC” stands for “real time communications.” It’s a technology that grew out of the World Wide Web consortium (which goes by “W3C”) to support browser-to-browser applications, like voice and video calling, with no need to download anything. Click to communicate.

We’ve already seen people talking into their smart watches. We’ll see many more such Dick Tracy maneuvers when Apple’s smartwatch emerges, in March. (Overheard during the recent Consumer Electronics Show were whispered demo comments like “I don’t think your watch heard you.”)

Also at CES, AT&T became the first American carrier to announce an API  (Application Program Interface) for its webRTC plans. Why would a developer want to write code for AT&T, vs. for any garden-variety browser that can do it? Presumably to be able to call to the numbers within the public switched telephone network (PSTN) — in other words, the traditional “black phones” connected to the original wired phone network.

Last week, the browser Firefox announced “Hello,” a plug-in that, once plugged in, enables webRTC-based calling. Also last week, up in Canada, ECN Capital launched an online investment program for private markets, based on webRTC.

Last year, at The Cable Show, Comcast showed a way to “live stream” video from wherever you are, to other Xfinity customers. You’re at the wedding, but Gramma couldn’t go, so you hold up your phone and stream it to her big screen. They called it “Share.” It, too, is anchored in webRTC.

Use cases show up everywhere: You’re browsing places on AirBnB. The host happens to be home, and amenable to “showing you around,” live, with video.

You’re on a customer care call, at your desk. You need to leave. Switch the call to your phone, tablet, watch — that’s webRTC.

As of now, there’s not a straight line between webRTC and the Internet of Things — the IOT is a sensor story, now. But the browser can’t be far behind. And when that happens, so opens a whole new way to call people, with your voice or your whole face, from whatever the device is.

So far, I can’t quite imagine taking a call from the fridge. But years ago, when digital was just starting, I used to say that anything that helps people to communicate better, is a winner. At the time, I used the example of being able to “talk” with my nieces about a particular live TV show — even though they live far away.

This is that. And like everything else based on IP (Internet Protocol), webRTC is coming. Whether you choose to use it is up to you.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

The Consumer Electronics Show, which sprawls a sensory overload across two million square feet (that’s 35 football fields) this week in Las Vegas, can be a useful forecaster of the kinds of stuff we’ll (someday) bring into our lives and homes.

It can also be an electronic petri dish of the spectacularly weird. Connected forks, to scold you when you’re eating too much, or too fast. Brainwave-sensing headbands, to tell you when you’re in a bad mood. Sensors, to monitor everything from sun exposure to canine/feline psychology.

Consider this a curated assembly of the kooky at this year’s CES — starting with the combo LED light bulb and JBL Bluetooth speaker, from Sengled. Each $60 bulb screws into an ordinary lamp, then plays stereo sound from two built-in, three-watt speakers. A companion app controls the streaming while regulating the lighting.

Too busy to work out? Maybe you need the “tiny gym in your pocket,” called “WellShell,” from TAO Wellness. It’s a plastic, squeezable thing, about the size of a (computer) mouse, but more swoopy. Its purpose: To give you an isometric workout, no matter where you are. (A marketing video shows a woman on a plane, squeezing the thing with both hands, as it blurts out “Flex! Flex! Flex!”)

Inside each WellShell: A pressure sensor, accelerometer, heart rate sensor, GPS tracker, and gyroscope. No pricing yet; a tag of between $200-$300 is expected.

Yoo hoo, runners: Are your socks smart enough? New from Sensoria (tagline: “the garment is the computer!”), the socks use “novel textile sensors” to detect activity type and impact force. Data transmits through a “featherweight, detachable anklet,” over BlueTooth, to a companion app.

To trick out your smooth moves, Austin Powers-style, there’s the $270 Logbar ring. Slip it on, learn a few gestures, boom! The (decidedly chunky) ring turns on the TV, checks the weather, turns on the lights, uploads a photo, and so on. Great if you don’t mind looking like you’re plucking imaginary flies out of the air. One catch: The app has to be on and active for the ring to work.

Speaking of chunky: New this year is a big, plastic, waterproof bracelet, called “Child Angel.” With its built-in GPS, your kids will never lose you again!

Tired of scraping the gunk off your grill? This one’s for you: The Grillbot. Like a Roomba, for your grill! Each 30 minute cleaning cycle uses three “powerful electric motors” to de-gunk your BBQ. Comes in four colors for $130.

Lastly: H+ Technologies calls its invention “Magic Box.” We call it holographic TV, baby! Perfect for a CES. Invented by Masters graduates of the Centre for Digital Media, the Magic Box converts 2D content into holographic 3D, displayed inside the box. Bonus: You can use it to charge your phone and tablet, too.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

For those of us headed to the annual Consumer Electronics Show, which happens a scant four days after the New Year, the holiday season necessarily includes shaking the network to get a deeper look at what’s planned.

You won’t be surprised at the outlook, but here goes.

First: UltraHD/4K is the new 3D, which had been the new HD, before the marketplace thud that hastened it out the door. The refrain this year, albeit not necessarily from the CE side: There’s more to better pictures and sound than “just” the television set.

This year, watch for UHD lingo studded with impressively nerdy terms like “high dynamic range,”  “color gamut,” and “bit interleave depth.”

All explain additional ways in which innovation is happening throughout the rest of the video ecosystem — think cameras, production gear, and the technologies of storytelling. If you go, you’ll see it in the way colors look. Blacks look downright velvety, reds look royal, greens mossy. The picture overall is brighter. Much brighter.

(Talk to any hardcore video engineer — HDR and what’s happening with color and brightness is as “wow” as when standard definition video went high def.)

Second: Wearables, coupled with a new-ish term — “cognitive computing” — described as “mobile devices that anticipate your actions based on who you are, who you’re with, and make decisions for you.” (Great…)

While it’s rare that the dazzle and pop of CES fare is directly relevant to this industry, wearables and cognitive computing do open a plausible stream of thought: What decisions could be made for us, that improve our media-centric life?

Note that it’s likely we’ll see more “smart clothing” this year. Already we’ve seen a blazer, designed for tourists in New York and Paris, and equipped with LED lights on the sleeves, and buzzers in the shoulder pads. The thinking: Stop looking at the blue dot on the screen! Your right arm will blink and buzz when you need to turn right.

Again. CES is CES.

Third: Smart homes, smart cars, driverless cars, smart things — sensors will sustain in show floor glitz. Entire pavilions will be cordoned off to showcase the Internet of Things, always a source of weird and interesting gadgetry, but rarely directly relevant to whatever it is we’re calling the cable industry these days.

Regardless, there’s nothing quite like the Consumer Electronics Show. This will be my 15^th consecutive year as (tres dorky) guide for CTAM’s tours, and while I generally dread it on the front end, I’m always glad about how it went, it at the end.

We’ll keep the highlights coming.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

It’s the week that ends with Black Friday Crazy, which means it’s time to start thinking about holiday gifts. To assist you in your list, we asked our tech-side sages for advice.

Specifically, we asked the video engineering brain trust this simple question: “What are you telling your family and friends, when they ask you if they should buy an UltraHD / 4K TV?”

The overwhelming majority (24 of 40+ responses) replied with variations on “wait.”

Here’s a sampling:

“Wait. Set prices are still too high, programming still too limited. But hey – if you’ve got money to burn, knock yourself out.”

“Buy one only if you’re a gamer. Otherwise wait a year.”

“Watch the color space specs to determine when to jump. I want one now but I’m making myself wait.”

“Wait for price drop. Wait for 10-bit panels and High Dynamic Range,” wrote one broadcast-side engineer, who, like many content-side technologists, likes to point out that 4K television isn’t just about resolution.

The #2 most repeated response: Not enough content created in 4K exists to feed the sets. (Note that almost all 4K/UHD sets contain within them ways to add bits to the picture, known in the lingo as “up-rezzing,” which exercises the resolution of the picture. Note also that content-side people sniff at this. “It’d be like you painting a masterpiece,” one snarked, “then handing it to the guy to hang it on a wall, who proceeds to add more paint to it.”)

“Just say no. No content,” wrote one engineering pal.

“If you like watching YouTube videos in 4K, then go ahead. Otherwise there’s pretty much no video content — a few things on Netflix soon, but definitely not ready yet.”

Other notable observations: “Don’t bother. Go get one of the last remaining plasmas while you still can and enjoy a good picture.”

And, as sustained proof that engineers are pretty funny people, this dandy: “If you really want to confuse them, tell them to wait for 8k.”

My personal favorite, from pal Stewart Schley: “I mostly like to gently suggest not watching television at all, even in standard definition. But that’s just me…”

Happy Thanksgiving and may your television acquisition quests be suitably informed.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

An OTT Lab Update

By Leslie Ellis

Given that Halloween punctuates the end of this week, it seemed timely to share some changes happening in my small-but-lively over-the-top video lab.

Background: The list of technologies, industries and companies that will “kill the cable industry!” is long and established. First there was microwave (a technology), then telcos and satellite (industries), then companies — name any of the OTT constituents. Spooky!

Until the OTT chapter, however, it was cost-prohibitive to conduct any kind of local experiment to vet the would-be cable-killers. A microwave antenna farm doesn’t exactly fit in a back bedroom, not to mention the coverage footprints of the subsequent competitors.

That’s why, a few years ago, it suddenly made sense (economically and space-wise) to see for myself: What about this growing army of video streamers is better or worse for video content consumption?

The lab hit its peak in 2012, with a gadget array so wide, the windowsill could barely hold the associated remote controls.

At the end of last year, however, it started to seem like “game over.” Google finally found its way (after countless iterations of “GoogleTV”) with Chromecast, at an astounding low price point —  $35. Between it, Roku, and Apple TV, plus the virtualizing of video streaming into TVs and other hardware gadgets, it started to get dull.

(After that, Amazon’s Fire TV came out — too late, but not too little. It remains my personal favorite of the hardware streamers.)

So, this year, we made a deliberate shift in another direction: The Internet of Things. Between myself and my lab goddess, Sara Dirkse, we’re gradually gearing up to watch the IOT trajectory, across two specific parameters. One is “stuff that’s actually useful.” The other is “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Here’s the short list of both, so far. Actually useful: Front-door webcams, to see who’s at the door no matter where you are; beds that conquer snoring partners without the need for pointy elbows; sensors that over-ride the irrigation system on rainy days.

On the oddest things we’ve ever seen list: The “selfie sombrero,” a ghastly, hot pink bonnet equipped with a tablet holder hanging from its enormous brim. A connected toilet, which quickly got hacked, enabling anyone to flush, open and close the lid, and activate the bidet. A virtual reality apparatus (“airVR”), which essentially straps your tablet to your face. And, my personal favorite, a “smart wig,” apparently useful for times when you want to advance a PowerPoint presentation by tugging on its (ghastly) sideburns.

That’s the Halloween lab update. Boo! We’ll keep the lists growing.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

f you live in a Verizon FiOS market, you’ve likely seen the video ads denouncing upstream speeds other than theirs. If not, here’s the gist of it: Families, at home, surfing the web, but running into slowdowns when posting music and video to the web. The tagline? “Stop living with half-fast Internet,” uttered by Modern Family’s famously funny Ty Burrell, a Verizon spokesman.

On the one hand, “half-fast” is a brilliant and funny play on words, not unlike Kmart’s “shipped its pants” campaign, or the lesser known but still funny pairing of “sofa” with “king,” to emphasize how very … anything … something is. (“That is sofa king good,” for example.)

On the other hand, and as someone who perennially frets about the state of the upstream / home-to-headend signal direction, it’s another reminder about the growing plausibility of symmetric network traffic — meaning an environment where as much stuff flows out of a home, as flows into it.

For the longest time, now included, there’s not been a need, really, for symmetry. Think about it. When you click to retrieve a web page, or to initiate a video stream, that click is tiny, compared to what comes back. In general, and at any given time, we’re using way more downstream (towards us) capacity than upstream.

For me, the first vestige of the potential for upstream capacity calamities came last Spring, when my colleague Sara set up a chicken incubator at her farm. She used a paper clip to kickstand an old iPhone, which peered into the contraption, and live-streamed the output.

It was a forehead-smack moment: Video is big. Webcams stream it. Uh-oh, upstream path. Cameras that stream become part of the machine-to-machine scene, consuming bandwidth in ways not before seen. (Hey, that rhymes!)

Then, this year, the GoPro camera craze intensified. It won’t take too many of them, strapped to the dog’s head, or the kid’s bike, to gum up the upstream path.

The keepers of the bandwidth in my circles assure me (repeatedly) that from a normal traffic loading perspective, we’re nowhere near the need to build for network symmetry — meaning, as much data moving away from you, as toward you.

That said, there’s no shortage of gadgetry in our lives that can capture and stream video, and especially those that can be triggered to run remotely — you’re at work, but someone rings the doorbell at home. Who is it? See for yourself, via a live video stream.

One thing is certain: We can expect more video running upstream, coincident with the webcams and GoPros we use to capture and send live video. That alone will contribute to a tilt toward symmetry.

As a result, the widening of the upstream path will likely go from “not in my lifetime” — the decades-old harumph amongst technologists — to lots more trial expansions next year.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.