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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."
Proving once again that people have no clue what net neutrality really means.
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.
Or at any other time, really, not just while battling the fire -- unless Verizon is going to monitor the activity of the fire department and throttle their service whenever the department isn't fighting a fire...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I run an IT Department for a City on the West Coast. Verizon has throttled "unlimited" plans for over a year now. It's a common pain. The biggest problem we're running into is dispatch. Old text based dispatch systems have been replaced with GIS based systems consuming significantly more bandwidth. Add citizens wanting dashcams and body cams and you're easily way over the 25Gb limit.
Historically, Verizon has been deeply embedded in our infrastructure due to our need for coverage, and Verizon had the best. Enter a new game change, AT&T and FirstNet (1N). ( https://www.firstnet.gov/ ) , AT&T has been pouring billions it infrastructure to support 1N. I predict within 18 months, Verizon not only will lose it's stranglehold on municipal communications, but virtually every municipality will jump to AT&T. Stories like this will only accelerate the change.
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In the same sense that the Queen of England appoints the bishops of the Church of England. Nominally, she appoints them, but their names must be on a list provided by the Prime Minister. That list can have a single name on it. In this case, Obama was required to appoint someone who would be acceptable to the Republican party leadership.
Bonus question: why have there been precisely zero Catholic Prime Ministers of the UK? It couldn't possibly be due to the possibility of a Catholic person choosing the bishops for the Church of England, could it?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I just don't get your flavor of Trump Derangement at all.
It's like you're steeped in homophobia, but for some reason you go cuckoo for coca puffs about Donald Trump.
Ok, thanks for the response - however that is still a VERY iffy connection to what happened to the fire department, and it's not at all clear to me that losing title II classification mans the fire department could not complain to the FCC (they still can), or that they could sue Verizion (which they certainly can).
So what has changed really? I still do not see anything clearly there that has really changed, apart from MAYBE the actions the FD can take - but I really do not see how it would have affected what Verizon actually did. It's not like behaviors at telcos change quickly, so I cannot see Verizon acting any differently under the previous rules vs the current ones with such a recent change.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People aren't fighting for the previous rules. They are fighting for actual net neutrality.