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Texas Lawmaker Wants To Ban Mobile Throttling In Disaster Areas (arstechnica.com)
Bobby Guerra, a Democratic member of the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives, filed a bill last week that would prohibit wireless carriers from throttling mobile internet service in disaster areas. "A mobile Internet service provider may not impair or degrade lawful mobile Internet service access in an area subject to a declared state of disaster," the bill says. If passed, it would take effect on September 1, 2019. Ars Technica reports: The bill, reported by NPR affiliate KUT, appears to be a response to Verizon's throttling of an "unlimited" data plan used by Santa Clara County firefighters during a wildfire response in California last year. But Guerra's bill would prohibit throttling in disaster areas of any customer, not just public safety officials. Wireless carriers often sell plans with a set amount of high-speed data and then throttle speeds after a customer has passed the high-speed data limit. Even with so-called "unlimited" plans, carriers reserve the right to throttle speeds once customers use a certain amount of data each month.
Despite the Verizon/Santa Clara incident, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has taken no action to prevent further incidents of throttling during emergencies. Pai's repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules allows throttling as long as the carrier discloses it, and the commission is trying to prevent states from imposing their own net neutrality rules.
Despite the Verizon/Santa Clara incident, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has taken no action to prevent further incidents of throttling during emergencies. Pai's repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules allows throttling as long as the carrier discloses it, and the commission is trying to prevent states from imposing their own net neutrality rules.
They can do like in Canada, rather then throttling, charge 25-50 cents a MB.
I'd love to get throttled rather then charged an arm and a leg for going over my cell limit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
How much extra is it going to cause the greedy carriers to remove the caps for a couple of days?
The monetary cost is not the issue. Congestion is. A disaster area is the place where caps are most justified. When disasters strike, there is often a surge of network traffic, beyond the normal level the infrastructure is designed to handle. The caps are needed to keep bandwidth available for emergency personnel.