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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."
I'm a net neutrality proponent and ... this doesn't seem to have anything to do with net neutrality.
Ah, OK, I see, they seem to be saying the specific issue was not a net-neutrality thing (because it wasn't), but proof that ISPs only have the financial interest in mind even in such a situation, so we need net neutrality to be protected from further abuse apart from the unrelated data capping...
Yeah, OK, a bit far fetched of an argument I guess.
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!
A whole bunch of the usual Slashdot crowd are griping that the facts of this issue have nothing to do with net neutrality.
I ask you people genuinely: So what?
Net neutrality was abolished by Pai using justification that had nothing to do with net neutrality, either. So instead of the usual "not Net Neutrality, CHECKMATE" shite, how about you try to justify what Pai did in the first place? (Protip: The "Obama nominated him" discussion has already been played-out.)
Sure it does, or rather, the lack of net neutrality
Ok then - What exactly in the rules that were repealed, would have prevented what happened? Since obviously you have read them and are familiar with what was repealed, I mean it would be crazy to be upset about the loss of something you had never read and didn't even understand, right?
I'll respond to any post that actually provides a real answer. If I am silent, well, perhaps you should try to answer the question - what in the rules repealed would have prevented a cell provider from throttling cellular data services?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...not a customer support mistake. Customer support *DOES NOT DICTATE* throttling rules. Verizon does. Take responsibility for your actions and stop blaming customer service for everything. They are enforcing the rules which you implemented!
Proving once again that people have no clue what net neutrality really means.
"Verizon's throttling has everything to do with unfettered capitalism -- it shows that companies will act in their economic interests, even at the expense of public safety,"
FTFY. Expect more as Trump fulfills his campaign promise of reduced government regulation on business and then many who voted for him will be reminded why we regulated these asocial entities in the first place.
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. . . .
Is much different than the term the fire department is used to.
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.
...but I believe that all communications providers should required to furnish all services to Police, Fire and other Emergency Services at cost.
I can just see it now, like in the Transformers movie where the soldier is trying to get through to HQ:
"Before I connect your call, can I talk to you about upgrading your cell phone plan?"
Look, I'm a stone-cold Capitalist Pig(TM) at heart for sure, but...just...Damn!
Was he watching YouTube videos about how to fight fires?
How is this not interference with emergency workers? If I interfered with firefighters' doing their jobs, I would be charged with a crime. So how is Verizon interfering with firefighters' ability to communicate with each other not the same crime?
It's never happened to me personally, and it takes two hands to count the number of times they've made an error in their favor (speaking about AT&T). How odd...
There was this one time I told sprint I was quitting my job at Radio Shack and to change my plan to a stanard, non employee one (the Unlimited everything and $50 store download credit a month for $25 back in 2006) and they kept the plan rolling for a year before I swapped providers due to crappy coverage.
But that doesnt counter all the shit I've had to deal with other carriers.
It's a fire department, it will always be in a emergency situation. How will Verizon really know if they have an emergency within a couple minutes? They should have a completely different plan that never throttles, ever. They shouldn't have chosen a plan that throttles, and Verizon shouldn't have given them one that does either.
This is stupidity on both sides, though more on Verizon for enabling this in the first place, and I don't see how this is a net neutrality issue.
Iit has to do with the fire department not paying the 2USD per month to get complete unlimited data and ignoring the warning they got.
It has zilch to do with Net Meutrality, BLM, ebonics, Trump or any other word you think is in fashion right now.
Just because you do a great thing does not mean you get a free ride. Next they are upset they need to pay for all other goods they use.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
More flaming bullshit from some fruitcake Ca official that didn't get Hellary.
This comes down to basics...
What are the requirements (functional and non-functional) of the service.
Is there an offering provides this level of service?
Is the supplier able to provide this level of service?
What are the guarantees does the supplier give?
What mechanisms are in place to mitigate a deviation from the required service level.
Are there contingency plans in place for both the supplier and the Fire Department if the service fails.
Don't believe the marketing, do your own research, seek references for the supplier.
In this case the Fire Department bought a service that on numerous occasions has been throttled for other customers and this has been documented in multiple forums and news reports.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
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.
Why aren't vital services like this getting free unlimited, unthrottled service by law?
E Proelio Veritas.
The argument the ISPs made was that they need to be able throttle traffic based on who it was to and what it was for so that they could make sure the most important traffic got priority and would always trump the lower class data. Their promise to emergency services (based on the article on this issue AND supported by statements and previous actions from Verizon) was that your emergency data usage would NEVER be impeded. It seems that Verizon does not have the infrastructure in place to implement their data tiering that they are implementing (again emergency services will never be impeded), which means you are a schmuck to pay a premium for the faster service and service guarantees.
Second, every one needs to stop comparing the plan process the Fire department was paying for that one SIM card to their own data plans. Their monthly bill is probably in the thousands, if not tens of thousands and as such they have access to a whole bunch of tiers and plans that consumers do not have. Verizon came out and said they (Verizon) had misrepresented the terms of the data agreements to the department AND they had failed to make sure that the emergency services tier of data was not impeded.
This isn't Net Neutrality issue, but is a utility vs commercial service issue. Fire, police and other emergency services phone data networks should NOT be on a commercial service but on a municipal utility service dedicated for just that purpose. Such a dedicated service should probably be maintained at a state level and the connected to a different network. Allowing emergency services traffic to be carried by a standard commercial carrier is a short sighted and stupid mistake. Police and fire communication is on a separate radio band and forbidden for general use why would a new medium not be the same ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Why is this being posted yet AGAIN to Slashdot?
>" The throttling "has everything to do with net neutrality," a Santa Clara County official said."
No it does NOT. Never has and never will, no matter how many times "Clara County" wants to say it. No matter how you try to twist it, or phrase it, or try to pin it on Trump, or whine, or cry. This is just data throttling, which nearly EVERY ISP does. It is normal, it does not discriminate in any way WHERE you get the data from or send the data to. It is determined ONLY by a total measured cap.
Now, Clara Country might have been stupid enough to not READ or UNDERSTAND the terms of the contract they signed and later not like it. Or perhaps there really was a mistake made by Verizon in putting them on a "unlimited" plan instead of a measured plan. But stop trying to make this some example of net neutrality.
Since throttling essential utilities is fair game according to Verizon, I propose fire departments throttle the water from fire hydrants near Verizon properties. Who's with me?
No, not true. They BID for the spectrum and won. This has been going on for a while and has
generated billions of dollars for the US Government.
Google "spectrum auctions" if you don't believe me.
Democrat: A bunch of guys that get together to decide what they are going to do with YOUR money.
Shut up bootlicker the margins on their services are more than adequate. They don't pass the cost to the consumer, they already charge you what they have determined the market will bear.
Fuck you shits all act like business and economic experts. Come to think of it.
How is it that you're here? Most of us are old and have interests in technology that have gotten us jobs tightly integrated into businesses. What is it that you do that you haven't absorbed basic economics through your work? I'm really curious.
First the fire department gets priority data on cell towers... next they're feeding babies to pol pot. It happened literally everywhere.
Hell the farmer's water has been throttled for years by L.A.
Policy is what guides an organizations' internal procedures. How it interacts with entities external to the organization is guided by laws and by contracts. Verizon's policy is for the birds when it comes to how it justifies its actions to outsiders. A Fire Department should have known better and it should have had a contract which stipulated this eventuality. If they didn't, they should be suing their lawyers for malpractice.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Repeat after me: throttling YOUR use when you exceed your agreed cap has nothing to do with net neutrality.
Net neutrality is about throttling a video web site to you, outside their agreement with you. (And especially in demanding a cut of what you pay that video site or they'll crappify the video you see.)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Oh well, at least America is great again, the swamp has been drained, and all those pesky environmental regulations are being rescinded. Oh well, at least the Koch brothers will make more money.
and will say it again. . . .
Every time a company gets caught doing something stupid, they never accept responsibility for it. They just have a junior programmer, or software " bug " or whatever ready to go as the designated scapegoat.
Just find a death caused by this. I bet the courts would get real interested real quick.
Net neutrality says that you cannot prioritize traffic to site A over that for site B for economic reasons alone.
Net neutrality would have done nothing about this.
The regulations proposed for net neutrality, some of which were written by the cable industry, would not have helped.
The only thing that will help is having more competition in the ISP world and that, ironically, is limited by regulations.
Alternative Right.
Blaming others for one's incompetence seems to be a hallmark of many government employees, including this Fire Chief. The county government should have planned for this and adjusted its contracts with Verizon appropriately.
But, don't let the liberal press, socialist, and other non capitalist tell you that. These companies built the internet connections, it's a business and they should run it. The government should butt out!
There shouldn't be an exception for government, on any level or for any reason, which doesn't apply to civilians. The fire dept has a safety concern, there are lots of potential safety concerns which don't get helped by simply making a blanket "don't throttle the fire dept bandwidth" but do get fixed by "don't throttle anyone's bandwidth." Net neutrality however is about not charging different amounts or supplying different bandwidths for different services - so what they're actually advocating for here is not having net neutrality.
How is any carrier able to claim that their data plan is "unlimited", when it's throttled to dialup speeds after only 25GB? And why did ANY public service agency buy such a plan? Penny-wise and pound-foolish on CalFire's side, and nearly criminal negligence from Verizon. Of course, from Verizon I would not have expected any better. I had a cell plan from them for two very long and frustrating years, and switched long ago. Now I'm in T-Mobile, and love it.
This is a prime example of Trump Derangement Syndrome
Fire department tried to save a few bucks and now wants to blame Verizon for their poor planning. If your going to build a safety network, know what you're building it upon. OT: Call this ignorant, but when the f&^% did you need high bandwidth to fight a fire? If their tools are built upon the requirement of high cellular bandwidth in a low cellular bandwidth world, someone isn't thinking straight and should be fired. As far as Verizon not switching off the restriction, these things happen when humans are involved. 4G airspace is finite - this isn't new. Verizon and other carriers need to put these 'tricks' in place to keep the network running reasonably well for everyone until something better comes along (5G). Remember when we thought 3G was reasonable fast, then it wasn't?? 4G was the answer, now due to explosive use of bandwidth, it too has it's limits. 5G will be that way one day too. More, more, more.
...if I can get "mining" rights to air. And sunshine. That'll show those Socialists. I'll just raise their rates.
...support for governmental control over the internet. Why anyone would want to hand more control over the internet to the government is beyond me.
If the fire department wanted unlimited service with no throttling they should have bought a contract. That included that. Im sure they thought that cost was unlimited. But there are different plans for that.
...why the hell were the Fire Service using an insufficient data plan that would leave them liable to run out of data in an emergency and why did they not have a backup connection available for that circumstance, which they were clearly aware of (given that there was an expected mechanism in place to remove it in an emergency)?
And what's more, how does that even work? Surely, by nature of their work, it's always used in emergencies - them being, you know, the emergency services - so they should never run out of data? Unless of course, it wasn't just being used in emergencies...
So much money to shills in the FCC.
But why screw up such a PR-able thing. Especially after getting a go ahead on f-ing everyone over.
ok, fair. it's only Cali. Not at real state. They don't vote red af. and their citizen basically don't matter in elections.
"it shows that the ISPs will act in their economic interests, even at the expense of public safety," County Counsel James Williams said. compare that to (just cut one zero from the percent numbers): "Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated." T. J. Dunning, cited by Karl Marx
It's all you can eat, but we feed you with a tiny spoon after the first plate.
This was a question that struck me too. Surly Verizon can configure the account to never be throttled. You would think that the Fire Service wouldn't want to have to call someone during a crisis to increase their data plan. So while it does look like Verizon screwed up by failing to remove the cap upon request, the Fire Service shares some blame by allowing the cap to be there in the first place. Lessons learned all around.
While I'm personally not a fan of Verizon and the whole practice of throttling on "unlimited plans", this really does feel more like the Fire Department bureaucracy trying to pass blame because their acquisitions office screwed up and bought the wrong product. I can easily imagine what happened now, some contracting officer thinking, "You know what, I don't need a government plan, I'll just get this consumer plan here that's a couple bucks cheaper a month. They're not going to need all that data; they'd probably just use it to stream Netflix at home or something."
To be fair, just for PR sakes, let alone public good, Verizon should have immediately lifted the cap versus trying to negotiate while the entire state was on fire. Though that we could also chalk up to Verizon's own bureaucracy...
When Harvey hit Rockport, AT&T cut all caps loose, supplying support and discounts to the hurricane victims of the area. But their cell coverage is still poor, if not worse after the storm hit. The reason behind this is the only cell tower providing service in a 50 square mile area is a 200 footer that went down during the storm and has yet to be replaced. The permits with the FCC have been cleared, but no action has yet to be taken by the owner of the tower, which is not AT&T, Someone needs to dig the spurs into the fools and get something taller up than a 50 foot surrogate tower that is not doing what it's supposed to be doing.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
thank those greedy selfish over paid people running it. Just another criminal corporation cheating and stealing from the people.
Verizon said the department had chosen an unlimited data plan that gets throttled to speeds of 200kbps or 600kbps after using 25GB a month
So does Verizon offer an "unlimited" plan that does not have throttling? Was there actually an option that the county declined, or is this just more of Verizon's disingenuous corp-speak?
Even their "above unlimited" plan has a 75GB data cap that throttles. How about we re-fucking-quire that companies that claim unlimited actually provide unlimited? 75GB is not unlimited. It is 75GB and it is most-fucking-definitely LIMITED at 75GB!
We know what unlimited means. Unlimited means buying a port/speed and having no limit on the quantity of data. Full purchased speed full time is unlimited. Anything else is a FUCKING LIE!
Net Neutrality is slowing down certain things and/or demanding money from the cause of the bandwidth usage. This is slowing down everything as a blanket solution to them crowding the tower for everyone else.
They signed up for a low-ball plan that clearly states when it is throttled. They should have signed up for a plan that covers them. An emergency situation is hardly the time to request service changes, that may come late or not at all. It seems the FD placed low-rates above public safety. Not a nn issue.
Perhaps the question they should be asking is why the hell were the Fire Service using an insufficient data plan that would leave them liable to run out of data in an emergency
They weren't. They were operating under a cap that is sufficient for normal operations, as in the day-to-day responding to a house fire and such.
In addition, the contract says that if there is a fire emergency, the FD will notify Verizon and Verizon will turn off the cap.
The first two parts happened, and Verizon didn't turn off the cap. Thus Verizon violated their contract with the fire department.
And then people would complain about just how expensive the Fire Department's data plan is, when they normally don't need that much data. So surely they could have a cheaper contract where Verizon would turn off the cap when there was a state of emergency. My tax dollars ar bein wasted!!!!!!!!!!
Calling Verizon when there's a state of emergency isn't actually all that much additional work. That declaration triggers a whole bunch of things, and including "call the phone company" is not a big addition. Verzion just has to actually do what they promised to do in their contract.
Reregulate the telcos. And indict, try, convict, and put the CEOs in jail for this reckless endangerment of lives.
Exactly this! I used to support both a fire and a police department. It's easy to say, "well they should be using segregated services with enterprise support, terms & conditions, etc."
The problem with that becomes, the service is so expensive that those departments shy away from getting service when and where they need it. You'll find that the service exists but is so restricted in scope that there are unmet needs all over the place.
This is where consumer level service offerings come into play. Maybe not all those phone plans actually need to be guaranteed, segregated bandwidth. It also serves to introduce phone service as a pilot-type offering, with the chance of upgrading it later, if it turns out to be service critical.
And that's the other part of it. Just because it's an EMS type line, doesn't automatically mean that it's a critical service. A lot of these things can be "convenience" type services. I don't mean to belittle those offerings either. It's a convenience service in the same way any person's cell service is convenience based. If sh*t happens and a consumer grade cell network goes offline, the consumer is going to be inconvenienced (or worse). However they didn't pay for guaranteed, segregated network access, and besides, major sh*t going down doesn't actually happen all that often.
So it's the known, standard trade-off. A cheaper data service buys you access most of the time, but it might go offline in an emergency. That can be a perfectly reasonable choice to make, even in the Emergency Services field.
They were right. It was a customer service error. Nearly all instances of over-throttling result from the mis-conversion of bytes to bits and vice versa by unskilled customer service peoples.
Nothing is EVER the fault of government, whether State or City or County, and by default NEVER the fault of any Agency run under those auspices. Any fallout due to failed management, corruption, or stupid policy is at best "unintended consequences", or "Reagan's Fault!" or "the environment" or "the two GOP politicians in the entire State Senate" or something.
pisspoor forest management, pisspoor municipal growth management, same with learning anything from last years' fires and then heading everything with elected officials from the exact same uniparty echo chamber, and you won't find anyone on any level ever being "at fault" for the exact things they demanded absolute control of, because they "were going to make sure" the problems that happend occasionally before, happen all the time now.
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.
See, that's what's wrong with firefighters today. No sense of professionalism, of doing the job to protect the public.
Nope, they got push their g-d-mn noses into screens everytime they should be fighting a fire.
Why do firefighters need screens to fight fires?
Heck, I can light a match and see the fire created, so I should obviously know what needs to be doused with water, right?
A firefighter lights match and then turns to s creen to find where the fire and the fire hydrant and the engine are located so they can douse the match?
Today's firefighters are pathetic and a true insult to a service to which Ben Franklin was a proud member. Need a citation to that, just look it up on Wikipedia: In 1736 Franklin founded the Union Fire Company, one of the first volunteer fire fighting companies in existence.
The firefighters aren't the one's using "screens", that is the work done in the office. They collect the data with devices on the trucks, and receive instructions over the audio equipment built into their helmets.