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Fire Department Rejects Verizon's 'Customer Support Mistake' Excuse For Throttling (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A fire department whose data was throttled by Verizon Wireless while it was fighting California's largest-ever wildfire has rejected Verizon's claim that the throttling was just a customer service error and "has nothing to do with net neutrality." The throttling "has everything to do with net neutrality," a Santa Clara County official said. Verizon yesterday acknowledged that it shouldn't have continued throttling Santa Clara County Fire Department's "unlimited" data service while the department was battling the Mendocino Complex Fire. Verizon said the department had chosen an unlimited data plan that gets throttled to speeds of 200kbps or 600kbps after using 25GB a month but that Verizon failed to follow its policy of "remov[ing] data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations." "This was a customer support mistake" and not a net neutrality issue, Verizon said. "Verizon's throttling has everything to do with net neutrality -- it shows that the ISPs will act in their economic interests, even at the expense of public safety," County Counsel James Williams said on behalf of the county and fire department. "That is exactly what the Trump Administration's repeal of net neutrality allows and encourages."
His point isn't agree/disagree with net neutrality, he's saying that the throttling has nothing to do with net neutrality. I haven't actually seen you say anything to refute that.
Yeah, but this is written in the wireless contract. NN doesn't do anything to stop that, as this is throttling due to data caps, not what service you are trying to reach. This has been going on for ages that wireless providers sell unlimited plans that have data caps.
Obama appointed Pai.
Now as others have said, what was repealed that would have prevented this?
There are a LOT of rural fire districts across the US operating on a subscription basis. No pay in advance, no fire put out. It's been this way for a long time.
Obama appointed Pai.
Pai was chosen by Mitch McConnel, not Obama.
T-Mobile comes a lot closer. Their cap is 50gigs and after that you are only throttled in congested areas which hopefully aren't wild fire zones. After 50gigs they lower your priority which means nothing if the tower has capacity. They don't throttle in the way ATT or Verizon does.
Everyone saying things like "what are the firefighters doing with data" needs to read over this paper. Also the book Geospatial Information Technology for Emergency Response for those who have access check libraries, others can use a preview to get some idea of the content.
Everything soldiers need from data applies here. Real-time collection of data about exactly where the firefighters are, what areas are burning, the status of efforts to extinguish fire, all must be transmitted. After processing on the office end, data sent back to responders in the field must pass through the same channel. This includes data about the direction and behavior of the fire in extreme granularity actionable from the ground, along with orders coordinating disparate units. If they use any sort of secured VOIP system then long range voice communications also use data. The old slashdot would understand all of this by default.
There was a great post in the last story by silentbozo (542534) referencing this article on arstechnica. It references the US Code Title II section 207 here.
That section reads "Any person claiming to be damaged by any common carrier subject to the provisions of this chapter may either make complaint to the Commission as hereinafter provided for, or may bring suit for the recovery of the damages for which such common carrier may be liable under the provisions of this chapter, in any district court of the United States of competent jurisdiction; but such person shall not have the right to pursue both such remedies."
Quick connection: When Net Neutrality was US law, if this exact situation occured, then the fire deparment could either make formal complaint with severe fallout for Verizon's continued operations, or alternatly would have 100% grounds to sue Verizon since it would have been 100% liable.
The Santa Clara Fire Department doesn't have the $40/month plan.
You're right, it's actually $37.99 plan. From yesterday's FA:
"A Verizon government accounts manager named Silas Buss responded, saying that the fire department would have to move from a $37.99 plan to a $39.99 plan "to get the data speeds restored on this device." Later, Buss suggested that the department switch to a plan that cost at least $99.99 a month."
So what you should be saying is they are well equipped enough that they *shouldn't* have that plan. But all evidence points to the fact that they do.
If you read TFA you'd discover the fire department negotiated - with Verizon - that data wouldn't be throttled in the event of an emergency. The fire, which definitely constitutes and emergency, resulted in a data overage and Verizon throttled the data. Verizon then had the balls to turn around and demand $62 more per month *during the fire*.
The plan was fine. Verizon failed to live up to the contract.