Technology Futures

techdirt has an interesting analysis of recent moves by Netflix, which include a crackdown on password sharing and price hikes.

All the streaming services are struggling. During the Covid lockdowns, subscriptions and viewers for streaming video increased rapidly, and the response by the services was to throw money at new content--movies and TV shows. But that led to a lot of mediocre (i.e. unwatchable) shows that no one wanted, and they all burned through a lot of the new subscriber cash. Now the price hikes and consolidation is starting.

I find that ads are creeping into all the popular streaming services, including Amazon and Hulu, which both started without ads. The ad breaks tend to be shorter, but I'm starting to feel like I'm back watching cable TV. And as the prices for everything keep going up, it really does feel more like "old" cable TV.

Here is a mostly non-technical explanation of how "AI" works. The phrase "artificial intelligence" is a bit of a misnomer, because software programs like ChatGPT are not "thinking" at all. The technical term for them is Large Language Models, or LLMs. Large language models process enormous amounts of written material and then use some sophisticated math to analyze that material and then be able to reformulate it into coherent text based on a user query.

The problem with "AI" is that it cannot escape the old programming rule of thumb "Garbage In, Garbage Out," or GIGO for short. If an AI is fed incorrect information, that will affect the quality and correctness of its answers. Large language models will continue to be developed and will have some very useful applications if the inputs are carefully controlled. But just turning a large language model loose on the Internet and having it vacuum up every Web page it finds is going to be less than optimal.

Numerous ISPs, including Google, have begun to advertise and market Internet bandwidth speeds higher than 1 Gig. The availability of faster speeds is not new; some networks began making 10Gig service available several years ago, but it was marketed and priced as a premium service.

What has changed more recently is the cost of 10Gig PON network equipment. Anyone building or expanding a fiber to the home network today is very likely installing the 10GPON equipment because it does not cost appreciably more than the "old" GPON network switches.

Not all ISPs are marketing a full 10Gig connection. Many are offering incremental speed increases over 1 Gig, including 2 Gig, 2.5 Gig, and 5 Gig.

The bigger question is who needs all that bandwidth? For normal residential and work from home use, symmetric Gig Internet is entirely adequate, but we are now in a marketing race to sell faster connections because it sounds "better and faster."

If you have one of those faster fiber connections, you will also have to upgrade the router or switch in your home or business to support those faster speeds. There are now some moderately priced switches that can provide those higher speeds over Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cabling. Where this increased speed really becomes useful is going backups to a local NAS (Network Attached Server) and/or large backups to cloud-based services.

Thirty years ago, a salesman from a major network switch company laughed in my face when I told him that every home would be using high speed Ethernet networks....he left my office and never returned. It's amazing how fast the technology has changed and matured.

So Comcast has hilariously complained to the FCC that it is just too darn hard to list all their prices. The "problem" is the mandated broadband label requirement. The label was part of a 2021 Federal law that requires ISPs to use a standard format, similar to what is used to disclose the contents of packaged food, to make it easier for consumers to see what they are paying for (e.g. speed of service) and how much it costs.

The real problem is that Comcast really does not have any published prices. Anyone that has ever called Comcast to try to change or cancel their service knows you can easily spend 45 minutes on the phone with a Comcast rep, who will propose *many* pricing options. Comcast will charge as little or as much as they think a customer will pay.