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."

Comments

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefighters are all communist anyway, and forcing us to pay taxes to cover their services is theft, so fuck 'em. They're as communist as NYC taxi-cabs.

Why should I have to pay to prevent my neighbour's house from burning down when he's too stupid to invest in his own fire prevention?!?

I made sure MY HOUSE is fireproof, I'm not paying money because other people refuse to do the same!