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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!
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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.
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.]
And it seems like they're dumping everything into the cause now, just in the hopes of preventing an even bigger disaster.
>"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!
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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)
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!
That's annoying
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."