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Facing 'Net Neutrality' Criticism, Verizon Suddenly Lifts Data Caps On All Public Safety Workers (siliconvalley.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Verizon testified Friday before a California State Assembly committee about why its "throttling" of county firefighters was completely unrelated to net neutrality. Then they surprised everyone by announcing that they were lifting all data caps on public safety workers with unlimited data plans, including federal justice agencies like the FBI, CIA and Secret Service.
Verizon claimed this was completely unrelated to the fact that 13 California Congressmen are now demanding that the FTC investigate Verizon's throttling of firefighters battling California's 290,692-acre wildfire. "It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Meanwhile, the California Professional Firefighters, which represents more than 30,000 firefighters and emergency personnel, came out in support of a strict new California law that restores net neutrality provisions, saying their group had "come to conclude that if net neutrality is not restored, the effect could be disastrous to the public's safety."
One county fire chief even testified this was the third time in eight months they've been throttled by Verizon.
Verizon claimed this was completely unrelated to the fact that 13 California Congressmen are now demanding that the FTC investigate Verizon's throttling of firefighters battling California's 290,692-acre wildfire. "It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Meanwhile, the California Professional Firefighters, which represents more than 30,000 firefighters and emergency personnel, came out in support of a strict new California law that restores net neutrality provisions, saying their group had "come to conclude that if net neutrality is not restored, the effect could be disastrous to the public's safety."
One county fire chief even testified this was the third time in eight months they've been throttled by Verizon.
Then the caps come back. For now, though, they are on the run. Keep the pressure up, americans!
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Its amazinf to have all if the unlimited data plans ehrn they technically are max-cap and throttle plans.
The man is not held accountable.
Good for them for doing this, but it's worth pointing out that the upcoming FirstNet infrastructure (and AT&T won the contract) should hopefully mitigate the chances of this affecting responders like this again in the years to come.
It was bad (and bad PR) for Verizon to let this happen in the first place; given that alone, hopefully it won't happen again.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
It wouldn't be the first time politics caused a change unrelated to the problem. Don't get me wrong, Net Neutrality is the correct path for the internet, but it has nothing to do with throttling when your data runs out.
Well almost nothing, if you could still access Netflix at full rate, while out of data, then yes, that is a Net Neutrality violation.
Overall I'm fine with public safety workers getting no data caps, as long as all providers do it. It just means less taxes being paid to pay the public safety workers cell phone contracts, but possibly higher internet bills to pay for the bandwidth used. In short, it probably doesn't change much, and is probably a small net positive.
"It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Yes we know, you should be ashamed that you deceived yoru citizen customers but HOW DARE you deceive the government or its entities!
Fun fact, had those millions of other "deceptions" been looked at by the government that cares so much we would not need something like this to get our attention. There is a reason why politicians do not really care that much about their voters.
Yes we know, you should be ashamed that you deceived yoru citizen customers but HOW DARE you deceive the government or its entities!
I'm not sure they really did deceive their government customers here. I thought they knew it was an ordinary contract. If your saying the people who bought the contract saw "unlimited" and expected unlimited, well yah I admit I didn't think of that as deception in today's terms. I just thought it was business as usual and not really ranking it up there with a big problem.
Here is a thought. Perhaps the average company's deceptive tactics have a use. Perhaps it is a small bit of training for the average American at spotting bullshit. It is a skill that it seems some significant part of 62,984,828 people need. It's a pity that it's gonna take a lot more training, but perhaps the remedial lessons are beginning to slower sink in.
I thought net neutrality had to do with throttling based on destination, rather than on monthly usage. Which situation happened to the firefighters?
with unlimited data plans?? so the ones that moved to pay per GB will not be able to go back?
This was really a missed opportunity for Verizon. They should have made a lack of data cap for public safety workers a selling feature. How many more options would they pick up if they had done it that way in the first place.
Seriously.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
I always wonder if posts like this are from actual unhinged people or just average internet trolls.
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
Here's another deception. California is about to pass Network Neutrality state-wide w a bill: SB822. So what does the telecom industry do?
If you said lie to panic elderly people, you are correcto!.
From state senator Scott Weiner: "We're now dealing with a straight-up misinformation campaign on our #NetNeutrality bill, #SB822: industry robo-calls to seniors falsely telling them that protecting net neutrality will increase their phone bills by $30. Scaring seniors w lies about their financial security? Gross"
Net Neutrality or not.
I find myself fairly well hinged, frankly. We have a fake BeauHD account spammer here so I fight his retardation with retard fire, it's just nature's way of thinning out the unintellectual herd. They relish in juvenile fisticuffs,
it's what they voted into office in Trump, so I give them a show of that retarded rhetorical force because it's the only strength they understand at this point, being deplorable uneducated traitors and willful morons each.
I think it's perfectly rational to expect Donald Trump to die in prison, in fact any other outcome I'd say is probably a gross perversion of our justice system and equal enforcement of law. He did collude, he did cover it up.
This has essentially already been proven in his own statements, let's face it, there is no prosecution needed. He's blurted out admissions of guilt and knowledge ceaselessly. He can't help himself, but it's all admissable in court.
I didn't vote for nor do I defend Hillary in saying so, and I think she probably did commit crimes also. But the scale of Trump's crimes is unprecedented not only for a President, even for most New York scumbag businessmen.
That he added racism and xenophobia to our national norm and now whines and wails against every single institution in America that doesn't kiss his diaper, that's just distasteful to all actual Americans. (Nazi scum not counted)
So that's just a few of my motivations in stepping on the rhetorical necks of a few casually treasonous nazi-lite retards in the public milieu. I'd prefer our Founding Fathers' methods of satisfaction also, but that's outlawed now.
And this is just a public forum being ruined by a few nazi cowards, so it's probably not worth getting actually worked up about. It's common in the Trump era, but it will all be over before any of us miss any of it, to be certain.
Trump will die in Federal prison a traitor, and America will be great again regardless.
And it seems like they're dumping everything into the cause now, just in the hopes of preventing an even bigger disaster.
tl;dr
eat out my ass
The internet is to be treated as a utility?
Well, guess what, if you don't pay your water bill you might have your water cut off, and if you don't pay your electricity bill you might have your electricity cut off.
And when cutting off is legal, then it would obviously be fully legal, if practically possible, to reduce someone's water and electricity to a trickle instead of cutting it off altogether.
It was obviously not a "net neutrality" issue. The mob doesn't care. Reality becomes what it needs to be.
>"It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers[...]"
And for the third time (on Slashdot).... this has NOTHING to do with net neutrality. The data speed is not being altered based on where the data is going or coming from; it is completely neutral, based on a non-secret cap. Data caps are on nearly all "unlimited" data plans with all wireless carriers (and most wired carriers too). Just because it is a government agency that didn't read or perhaps understand their contracts before signing them doesn't make it any more deceiving than for anyone else. But.... but.... "save the children!!!!"
Per what is now apparently the industry standard definition, "unlimited data" does not mean "unlimited speed" across the "unlimited" data, it just means data service will not be cut off or incur extra charges at some point during the billing cycle. If they don't like that, then work out a deal on a different data plan, or work with the FTC to change or clarify the meaning of "unlimited data" and force all the carriers to call it something else.
You really shouldn't get to advertise " Unlimited " plans, then ( via extra fine print on page 936 of the user agreement )
turn around and throttle the bandwidth into the ground so as to make the entire service completely useless. ( God forbid
you actually USE your " Unlimited " plan as unlimited. )
It's akin to being sold a Ferrari with all that horsepower available to it, but being forced to drive it like a Prius. :|
I also find it amusing that this is only an issue because it's Firefighters. ( Or any profession that the public is constantly :| )
reminded to refer to as " Heroic ". Don't get me started on that one.
Congress could give two shits about Verizon screwing over the general public every day with the very same policies, but if you do it to
$heroic_profession, ( or a Congress type ) all of a sudden it's a big fucking deal and everyone runs in little circles demanding answers.
They apparently didn't have the best unlimited, but now they do. Unlimited, unlimited, UNLIMITED! Seriously, the main problem is almost no one is up front about what customers are really are buying, details are buried deep in fine print. This wouldn't be a problem if they called a 10GB data plan with a throttle cap what it was instead of unlimited. Throttling is a limit. Advertisers purposefully make the language confusing to make it seem like you get more than you really do. Force advertising to be up front and not misleading, make your data usage status even more convientntly accessed, screw them if it's not as profitable.
It's almost like some kind of invisible hand corrected a problem with zero government intervention!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Unlike you nerds, Women are actually going to listen to what these guys have to say on the matter.
Suddenly there are millions of safety workers.
Another fakedick non-Beau, it's sad and amazing at the same time that he's such a threat to your childish nazi fantasies that you... dress up in his clothes and try to be him? That's just weird, a bit homo-erotic.
Why don't you just ask him out?
See subject & you do-nothing soyboy "ne'er-do-wells" are too COWARDLY and EFFEMINATE to ban bump stocks. This would be REAL SECURITY that would put an end to mass shootings. The estrogen in soy milk makes all of you too cowardly to BAN BUMP STOCKS.
* The NRA is supported by George Soros, the Russian government, Jews, and their allies in the Vatican. The Vatican has MEDDLED in our elections to support Hillary Clinton and OPPOSE any form of GUN CONTROL. They work with the Jewish elites in the United States to add SOY MILK to our foods, containing ESTROGEN and making our men EFFEMINATE.
A ban on bump stocks would have STOPPED many recent MASS SHOOTINGS including at the Waffle House, Las Vegas, Parkland, and so many other places. It is TRULY PATHETIC that you SOYBOY WEASELS insist on keeping bump stocks legal. A ban on bump stocks will STOP MASS SHOOTINGS just like my HOSTS FILE ENGINE is a cure-all for INTERNET SECURITY.
Losers like Coren22, arth1, Zontar The Mindless, AssFux (lol), and so many more of you UNIDENTIFIABLE FAKE NAME losers attack me relentlessly for telling the TRUTH. It takes a REAL MAN like me to continually dust all of you you weasels, while you LIE and ACCUSE me of evil criminal acts. You are INCAPABLE of accepting the TRUTH that BUMP STOCKS MUST BE BANNED.
APK
P.S.=> I will continue to DUST your feeble arguments and SWOOP IN wherever you UNIDENTIFIABLE WEASELS keep lying and trolling. You are truly a sad and pathetic sight to see... apk
Because you have no alternative? Because it's the only company offering services in your area? Isn't America beautiful?
Are you mad at me now? What are you mad about?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Those robocalls sure increase profits!
Ars Technica covered this some time back. Rival ISPs get their wires cut. ISPs have no-compete agreements with each other wherever possible and make it very expensive to compete in other circumstances. ISPs have gone bankrupt repairing mysteriously destroyed infrastructure in Comcast and Verizon territory.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Trump will die in Federal prison a traitor, and America will be great again regardless.
Depends on if we still have free elections or not.
Muller can't really do anything about Trump except telling congress that they have to do something about the traitor.
It is pretty clear that the Republicans are going to do jack shit about it regardless of what Muller finds.
So if we get the same situation in midterms and 2020 where Georgia can just throw away undesired votes or deregister voters that were registered for "the other party" so that they get turned away on election day then Trump will be safe.
Trump's 1% win threshold won't hold off if he's provably a traitor. When Mueller pulls the trigger the last cowards in GOP congress will be shamed for their ongoing support of what is obviously treason, were war declared.
Trump isn't going to prison. There was no collusion with Russia except by the Clinton campaign. Now there's a person who needs to die in prison.
As to being a traitor...let's see, does away with horrible trade deals, brings manufacturing back, highest economic optimism in a long time, people with more money in their pockets, highest stock market ever--all these things are the opposite of what his 5 predecessors did, the opposite of what Clinton would have done, AND he refuses to start new wars and is ending old ones. Yeah, worst traitor in history.
Also, and let me be really clear here: collusion is a made up story. But even if it were not made up bullshit (and it is) it is not, in fact, illegal to talk with non-Americans during an election campaign.
If you want collusion, look at the Saudis funding much of Hillary's campaign, or Hillary's campaign taking over the bankrupt DNC. Now there's someone who's going to die in prison.
Sorry to burst your millenial bubble. The world isn't so just because you want it to be, and nobody hands out participation trophies or provides safe spaces either.
"Verizon introduced caps for the firefighters at the same time as they stopped network neutrality. That is the basis for the lawsuit demanding the reintroduction of net neutrality."
Since the carriers were able to get away with killing NN, they felt they could get away with a lot of other things as well.
NN is only the tip of the iceberg of the problems in need of attention, but since it is the visible part, everything gets lumped into it.
For steering this iceberg, a useful question is where would competition put us?
If we are going to have this regulatory provided monopoly, then the regs supporting it should move towards that place.
Sadly, regulatory capture seems to do the opposite.
Preferential treatment of data is what net neutrality is meant to fight. Picking and choosing which services (in this case, public safety workers) is exactly what goes against net neutrality. If it's neutral they would remove ALL data caps for ALL users for ALL services - that's the only definition of "net neutrality."
Why anyone would believe that net neutrality would fix this is beyond me. There is a finite amount of bandwidth available. That's a simple technological fact. So if, in fact, net neutrality is what proponents say it is and all content is treated equally, then nobody gets a fast lane including public safety users. So, in this case, public safety users have to share the limited bandwidth with everybody else especially thousands of people wanting to stream live video of the event. But if net neutrality gives some regulatory entity the power to adjust the quality-of-service (most routers have this feature) of one type of user's bandwidth, then it really isn't neutral at all.
The fact that a dedicated network to handle public safety traffic is being built tells you that net neutrality won't solve the problem.
Confessing to "crimes" and "violations" that simply don't exist. Even corporations are now getting into the act - responding to criticism that simply doesn't apply.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Impersonating me? Get a life already, freak!
APK
P.S.=> Unbelievable anyone wastes their life & time the way you do impersonating me & for what? Does it STOP me from posting?? No... apk
Impersonating me? Get a life already, freak!!!
APK
P.S.=> Unbelievable anyone wastes their life & time the way you do impersonating me & for what? Does it STOP me from posting?? No... apk
I'm not, it's an a-hole impersonating me & I tell him off (going on for months now) https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... (the loser resorts to impersonating me when he fails taking me down technically).
APK
P.S.=> The "price of fame" is JEALOUS "Lil' Jowies" that WISH they could do well STALKING you (& everyone knows they do by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous to me) OR IMPERSONATING you... apk
mpersonating me? Get a life already, freak!!
APK
P.S.=> Unbelievable anyone wastes their life & time the way you do impersonating me & for what? Does it STOP me from posting?? No... apk
"One county fire chief even testified this was the third time in eight months they've been throttled by Verizon."
Maybe watch less porn on the phone?
"Data caps on unlimited plans" sounds so ridiculous
Maybe they should reduce their data footprint? Analyze their data usage and try to optimize it better. e.g. Does Toby really need to watch 4K porn for 10 minutes in the bathroom on his high density Android phone? That happened once to, umm, a friend.
Suddenly. You fucking extorted firefighters who were doing their fucking job saving peoples lives. You scum.
Think of how long it would have taken to reverse this policy if it was required from NN laws. It's a good thing Verizon has the flexibility of the free market to respond to the public without having to go through bureaucracy hell to do anything!
Small, Medium, and Large plans all refer to the amount of data (2GB, 8GB, 16GB, etc), nothing to do with speed so I don't understand why so many still have such difficulty grasping that Unlimited also refers to data. But, at this point, the confusion's gone on long enough that I give up. Let's just make the Unlimited plan be renamed to "25GB 4G Speed + Unlimited 1x Speed" and call it a day. Nevermind that your average consumer will still complain, saying , "I thought that meant you get unlimited one times speed, and there were better plans were you get unlimited double speed!" Put the actual Mbps on the plan name instead. Now every customer is calling in complaining that their plan name is a bunch of numbers they don't understand. God forbid anyone just actually read the plan they're buying instead of just expecting the title to relay every minutia of it. I also just love how the fire department adds that Verizon throttled them 3 times, as if that's repeated slights from their ISP and not them repeatedly failing to realize they needed a different plan.