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.

Comments

Misleading advertising

[burtosis]

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.

Re: Misleading advertising

[burtosis]

The problem is relying on second rate consumer data plans for critical infrastructure. This was a management failure, not a technical failure. Sending firefighting back to the 1960s is not the answer.

Re:Misleading advertising

[Pentium100]

I do not know how public acquisition works in the US, but in my country, the government puts out the specifications for whatever they want to buy, get offers and has to choose the cheapest offer that meets the specs.

So, if two companies offered unlimited data service, but one offer was $2 cheaper, then that would be chosen (or the office may be sued by the company who offered the cheaper service).

Re: Misleading advertising

[jd]

That's the rule in the U.S., except they never check if the company has any intention of delivering. Hence the massive overruns, failed projects, etc. Ditto for the UK.

Re: Misleading advertising

[sg_oneill]

Having worked on systems fire crew in Australia use, it's not as simple as that. In a well run fire fighting system there's tonnes, gigabytes and potentially terrabytes of data flying about , GIS fuel (ie how deep leaf matter is in places etc etc etc) maps, data on how the wind is behaving as superheated smoke starts fucking with local pressure systems, fire behavioural models, as well as complicated logistics to get fire fighters in and civilians out of the fight.whilst monitoring safety and trying to anticipate medical and infrastructure requirements in real time.
I agree this isn't something that should be entrusted to cheap and nasty consumer broadband , but it's absolutely not something that can be replaced with Walky-talky radios.

Re: Misleading advertising

[Truth_Quark]

Which calls into question why government officials and first responders are relying on it during emergencies.

It's not telephone services. It's a modern real time logistics and resource managements system.

From the DECLARATION OF FIRE CHIEF ANTHONY BOWDEN to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

6. Only a few weeks ago, County Fire deployed OES Incident Support Unit 5262 ("OES 5262"), to the Mendocino Complex Fire, now the largest fire in state history. OES 5262 ADD2 USCA Case #18-1051 Document #1746555 Filed: 08/20/2018 Page 4 of 58 is deployed to large incidents as a command and control resource. Its primary function is to track, organize, and prioritize routing of resowces from around the state and country to the sites where they are most needed. OES 5262 relies heavily on the use of specialized software and Google Sheets to do near-real-time resource tracking through the use of cloud computing over the Internet.

7. Resources tracked across such a large event include personnel and equipment supplied from local governments across California; the State of California; federal agencies including the Department of Defense, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service; and other countries. As of Monday, August 13, 2018, the response effort for the wildfires burning across California included 13,000 firefighters, multiple aircraft, dozens or hundreds of hulldozers, and hundreds of fire engines. The wildfires have resulted in over 726,000 acres burned and roughly 2,000 structures destroyed. With several months left in what is a "normal" fire season, we fully expect these numbers to rise.

8. OES 5262 also coordinates all local government resources deployed to the Mendocino Complex Fire. That is, the unit facilitates resource check-in and routing for local government resources. In doing so, the unit typically exchanges 5-10 gigabytes of data per day via the Internet using a mobile router and wireless connection. Near-real-time information exchange is vital to proper function. In large and complex fires, resource allocation requires immediate information. Dated or stale information regarding the availability or need for resources can slow response times and render them far less effective. Resources could be deployed to the wrong fire, the wrong part of a fire, or fail to be deployed at all. Even small delays in response translate into devastating effects, including loss of property, and, in some cases, loss of life.

Also they have frequency set aside for first responders and forest fire crews. Did they suddenly become uneducated on how a radio, a compass and a map works.

Dropping back to radios, compasses and maps is obviously sub-optimal, but if you're expecting the command and control center to be able to perform command and control, you might not have that option ready.

The problem is that they were throttled at a critical time, and the outcome was poorer coordination of the response until Verison was paid off to lift the throttle.

Re: Misleading advertising

[c6gunner]

So, if two companies offered unlimited data service, but one offer was $2 cheaper, then that would be chosen (or the office may be sued by the company who offered the cheaper service).

That would be true if the service was actually the same, but they never are. You can put all of your requirements in the bid request. Typically you would define the speeds you expect, the service availability, the total amount of data needed per month, etc. Just because two different companies both market their plans as "unlimited" doesn't mean that both of them can actually deliver all of what you require.

Re: Misleading advertising

[drinkypoo]

I agree this isn't something that should be entrusted to cheap and nasty consumer broadband , but it's absolutely not something that can be replaced with Walky-talky radios.

There's no other system that can carry the traffic. Satellite phones won't handle that much throughput, satellite internet ala HughesNet or Exede has to be aimed, and the only other system in place to cover remote areas is cellular.

This AGAIN?

[markdavis]

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.

Re: This AGAIN?

[jd]

They did negotiate another plan.

It's common knowledge the plan they had specifically included a clause for no throttling in emergencies. The discussion is over whether Verizon can lawfully break contractual clauses because they feel like it, and if so which ones.

Currently, the FCC and Federal government are inclined to the view that contractual clauses are irrelevant. The courts are undecided. If the courts do decide contracts have no legal standing, that could have some I interesting consequences.

Re:This AGAIN?

[Truth_Quark]

It has nothing to do with "net neutrality", it has to do with the industries' definition of "unlimited".

It has something to do with "net neutrality". The repealed net neutrality laws did ban throttling. (Although they had an exception for "reasonable network management" ... which this throttling wasn't, it throttled at all times after 25GB, no matter what the load on the network was)

Re: This AGAIN?

[jd]

I'm able to state that the senior officials and firemen involved have all stated this to be part of the contract. If you wanted to know, you'd be asking them. Asking me suggests you'd rather not know. I'm curious as to why. Because then you'd be faced with an incontrovertible fact that you'd been lied to?

That happens. It's better to find out the truth even if it means corporations do bad things to good people and that libertarian philosophy doesn't work in a monoculture.

Re:California's fault for poor water management!

[PopeRatzo]

It's California's fault the firefighters even had to be there.

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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seriously?

[ooloorie]

Bowden said that Verizon, whom the country fire department had paid for “unlimited data,”

Was the data limited? No, just the throughput.

hobbled the first responders’ ability to communicate “despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire’s ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services.”

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.

Re:seriously?

[drinkypoo]

Throttling happens on consumer plans. If you want business or professional level service, you need to pay for it.

They were on a professional-level service. In fact, they were on a plan for emergency services.

Re: seriously?

[drinkypoo]

A plan for emergency services would by necessity have to involve planning for contengencies during emergencies.

It was Verizon's policy to remove caps when contacted during emergency situations, and they did not follow that policy. Verizon has admitted that it was their mistake.

Re:California's fault for poor water management!

[pslytely psycho]

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You can't build your own mobile system

[rsilvergun]

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.

Oh one more thing

[rsilvergun]

[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]

What does anyone expect...

[sydbarrett74]

...with Ajit Pai fellating Verizon and tickling its balls?

Re:Nothing will be done

[BlueStrat]

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

Net neutrality???

[fafalone]

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.

Re: Nothing will be done

[jd]

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.

Re:Nothing will be done

[Darinbob]

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.

Re: Nothing will be done

[jd]

No, peer-to-peer agreements for tier 1 prevent that.

Well, they did. They don't, now.

Re:California's fault for poor water management!

[pslytely psycho]

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