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FCC Criticized For Surrendering Power To Punish Verizon After Firefighters Got Throttled During Wildfire (gizmodo.com)
Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday criticized the FCC on its response to Verizon's throttling of firefighters' data speeds as they battled a major wildfire in Northern California. "In a letter Friday, Senator Edward Markey and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo demanded answers from the FCC over what steps it is currently taking to address 'critical threats to public safety,' citing its decision to repeal Obama-era net neutrality protections," reports Gizmodo. From the report: The 2015 Open Internet Order -- overturned by the FCC's Republican majority last winter -- reclassified internet providers like Verizon as common carriers under Title II of the Federal Communications Act, granting the FCC regulatory authority that, in this instance, would have allowed the commission to investigate and potential penalize Verizon for its decision. At Chairman Ajit Pai's direction, the commission abdicated that authority this year. It no longer has the power to establish rules prohibiting Verizon from throttling emergency services, or charging police and fire departments additional fees to maintain their communications at optimal speeds when usage peaks -- say, during a wildfire, or an earthquake, or a mass shooting.
"The FCC has incorrectly suggested that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could sufficiently fill this void," wrote Markey and Eschoo, whose congressional districting includes portions of Santa Clara. "We strongly disagree with that assertion." In their letter, the Democratic lawmakers urged the FCC to make use of its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and investigate the matter, saying that while the FTC may find Verizon's actions exemplify an "unfair and deceptive practice," both agencies should use "all of the tools available" to resolve this public safety matter. "To do nothing is unacceptable," they said.
"The FCC has incorrectly suggested that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could sufficiently fill this void," wrote Markey and Eschoo, whose congressional districting includes portions of Santa Clara. "We strongly disagree with that assertion." In their letter, the Democratic lawmakers urged the FCC to make use of its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and investigate the matter, saying that while the FTC may find Verizon's actions exemplify an "unfair and deceptive practice," both agencies should use "all of the tools available" to resolve this public safety matter. "To do nothing is unacceptable," they said.
ashitpile says, as he pats his fat wallet, "it's what my 'customers' wanted."
If they simply had called it a 25gig then throttle plan this wouldn't be confused with net neutrality. Instead it's advertised as the best unlimited everything, the data usage in real time is difficult to track for average users, and no one reads fine print leading to the confusion. In that case I'd agree it's deceptive and in this case led to an unsafe condition. Too bad deceptive advertising likely won't get fixed for the common people.
OMG! Give it a rest!!! If they didn't want a capped with throttled data plan, then they should should have:
1) Negotiated some other deal
2) Signed up for a metered plan
3) Found some other vendor
or
4) Built their own mobile system
I mean, it is NOT A SECRET that [perhaps all] so-called "unlimited" data plans throttle after a cap. READ YOUR CONTRACT. It has nothing to do with "net neutrality", it has to do with the industries' definition of "unlimited". It is not Verizon's "duty" to read your minds and adjust their plans to whatever use the government agency wants to use it for, to, oh.... "save the children" or whatnot. They are not shaping of traffic based on where the data was coming from or going to, it is just a cap and then throttled after that. Old "unlimited at full speed" plans ended many years ago and consumers HATED overage charges and unpredictable bills that came before, so this cap-then-throttle concept is what replaced it. Again, you might not like it, but that is WHAT YOU SIGNED UP FOR!!
If the mobile industry (and pretty much all ISP's now) definition of "unlimited" is what needs attacking, perhaps choosing a new name for it would help, then that is the domain of the FTC, not the FCC.
Yeah, if California didn't insist on having, you know, trees then they wouldn't have to fight wildfires.
In fact, we are now learning that President Trump is secretly working with Robert Mueller to prosecute the State of California for having trees as soon as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are sent to Guantanamo and executed.
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Was the data limited? No, just the throughput.
Throttling happens on consumer plans. If you want business or professional level service, you need to pay for it. Trying to run a fire department on consumer data plans is negligent and Bowden should be held responsible.
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we've granted the cell phone companies a spectrum monopoly. This is actually necessary given the nature of radio waves, but rather than treat it like a lease on the public commons we 'sold' an unlimited monopoly to certain spectrum to each carrier. You don't get to compete with Verizon because that's not how radio works, and cell phones are just fancy radios.
As for another vendor, see above.
As for negotiating, They can't negotiate since the kind of spectrum that reaches out to where the fires are was sold to Verizon.
As for a metered plan, screw that noise. It's a public good (radio waves) and the fire department. Just use eminent domain to require them to provide unlimited service to emergency services. That is literally what eminent domain is for. It's bad enough we're letting the cell phone companies abuse us but now we're letting them endanger our lives and our property in blind obedience to some capitalist ideal we had pounded into our skulls in grade school. Jeez, enough already.
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[oldmanrant] is it just me or did the quality of discourse really go to heck recently here on /.? I mean, I'm not expeting everybody here to be a ham radio enthusiast but I'd like to think this being a geek and tech forum we'd all know enough about how cell phones work, how spectrum is dolled out and why, if you're out in the boondocks fighting fires you'd need to stick with a particular carrier to understand why the fire department doesn't have a lot of options for a mobile carrier. I mean, I needed to know that just to choose a carrier (I picked T-Mobile because although their spectrum sucks in building and out on a trail it's the best in a city and I don't do astronomy and hiking so speed and cheap unlimited data was what I was after). [/oldmanrant]
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...with Ajit Pai fellating Verizon and tickling its balls?
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Nothing ever is done to big corporations
...criticized for surrendering the power...
The FCC never had the legal authority/power in the first place. You don't use a hammer on a screw or a screwdriver on a nail. EO's and Presidential Directives are not law. The problem is not in the FCC's purview, but the FTC's until Congress passes a law or Act that says otherwise.
If you give your guy the power(s) to do an end-run around the Constitution, Congress, and due process, you give the opposition's guy the same power(s). That's not a winning strategy for either side and especially not for the people.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It appears that 'net neutrality' is being used by people to cover every bad ISP behavior. This incident had nothing to do with net neutrality. Their entire service was throttled, it wasn't a particular 3rd party website that was throttled or put in the slow lane because the 3rd party hadn't paid Verizon, nor a specific protocol that was throttled-- those are what net neutrality addresses, and that's it. And that myth seems to go hand in hand with people thinking net neutrality prohibits basic QoS. Nope.
All this misusing the term is ultimately going to be counterproductive in getting good rules in place.
This debate was held in the 70s and 80s. In Reagan's time, it was well established that data was regulated the same as voice, that ISPs were telecos no different from any other.
This was settled until Bush passed an executive order nullifying this. You cannot change the law with an executive order. Bush classed data as distinct, by order.
If you want to talk Congress, fine, but start with eliminating Bush's order and THEN talk Congress.
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Hmm, Federal *Communications* Commission. It logically should have some authority over a major communications company. The FTC is clearly without doubt the wrong place, because the FTC has no power over anything. Whereas until recently it was widely agreed that the FCC as the appropriate place for this.
However the Trump administration has taken it upon itself to dismantle the government, reduce and eliminate all its power, and let corporations do whatever they want. They're not the GOP anymore or they wouldn't be pissing on Reagan's grave so much.
No, peer-to-peer agreements for tier 1 prevent that.
Well, they did. They don't, now.
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)
You make good points. Those Liberal scum.
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Actually the term empty set is a term used to indicate that while their could be a set in some cases there is no set in this case.
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Expensive but Should spectrum be dedicated to fire safety and use separate systems like Tetra?
CA's water and forestry management is a clusterfuck of corporate and environmental protections that led directly to the wildfires. The wildfires are absolutely the fault of CA politicians and CA NIMBYs.
The U.S. could dedicate beachfront spectrum to a public safety first responder network, allocate money to its startup, and maybe even get in partnership with a major carrier to operate it. Maybe call it "FirstNet" or something catchy like that. Then government, in all of its wisdom, could avoid problems like this. But wait! They did! Twenty megahertz of prime 700 MHz spectrum, $7B in startup money, a lucrative 25-year contract to AT&T, AND six years since Congress passed the legislation. Someday it will live up to the dream. In the meantime, first responders can use AT&T's commercial network and even get priority access and pre-emption over mere mortals. But wait, further! First responders still predominantly use the pedestrian VZW network because .... wait for this ... it better covers where they need it to work. Really: Would more government fix California firefighters' expectations. Caveat emptor!
Hmm, Federal *Communications* Commission. It logically should have some authority over a major communications company.
The FCC deals with technical issues and standards like RF spectrum frequency-band divisions and mode & bandwidth restrictions.
The FTC deals with how businesses operate.
This about how they operate and not a technical issue, so it's an FTC issue.
Don't like it? Get Congress to pass a law or Act to change it. Doing an end-run around the Rule of Law never works out in the end for anyone but tyrants and authoritarians.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Eat shit and die
Ignorant and angry is no way to go through life, son.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
FCC deals quite a lot with how to share a limited resource, who gets to use it, who doesn't get to use it, and how it gets used.
The FCC is overseen by congress and is an independent agency, it is not a part of the executive branch. No new law is needed here, congress already created statues to grant it the authority to regulate interstate communication via wire or RF.
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Yeah, if California didn't insist on having, you know, trees then they wouldn't have to fight wildfires.
He is referring to California's "conservation" policy going back decades to stop every forest fire allowing the forests to become overgrown producing much more destructive fires.
Then he's referring to something that simply isn't true.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Natural wildfires perform vegetation clearing and so limit themselves. Manking comes in, clear cuts fire resistant forest, builds flammable housing next to the forest, then ensures decades of dead growth piles up on the forest floor, turning the whole thing into a tinderbox.
Wild fires are natural. But natural wild fires do not consume the type of acreage CA wild fires do.
It's easy to jump on the "evil corporation" bandwagon (although not quite everyone is). Why did the fire department not contract for service level required? Who has looked to see how much data was lots of mission critical GIS information and how much was firefighters streaming Netflix on breaks? Who has looked at the mission apps to see if they followed reasonable practices instead of just arbitrarily shuffling data around because it was the easy solution?
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