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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.
Volunteer firefighter and programmer.
I believe you and others have been decieved by Verizon.
Fire departments have a cap on monthly useage for normal emergency patterns and non emergency related internet use . IF we watch to much netflix, youtube, send to many emails.... WTFever then we are and should be capped.
But the momemnt we inform the ISP we have a public emergency usage requirement then the ISP is supposed to rip off that cap and give us everything we need until the emergency is over. I beleive that the fire department even mentioned that clause to the verizon rep and in their public information release.
It is effectively an insurance policy that Verizon failed to honor and instead they forced the fire department to pay more to get the service that was requireded
If our usege goes beyond our agreed upon service level agreement on a regular basis then the ISP is supposed to tell us we have to step up to another plan.....at the end of a 12 month cycle
the all the time unlimited plans that Verizon mentioned are for larger Fire Department that need unlimted all the time. Lower tier plans for smaller fire departments still have the public emergency use terms that give us unthrottled unlimited data during an emergency