Verizon Throttled California Fire Department's Data Speeds During Wildfire Response [Updated]

[KPandian1]

The firefighters are the boots on the ground - the administrative wing of their company seems to have messed up here by pinching cents somewhere. How difficult is it for their lawyers to include the phrase "no throttling" in the contract?

Seems like the administrative wing of the school systems - saving money on teachers while paying $2.00 for a $0.20 pencil and so on with other supplies, and, taking the difference as "lobbying fees". In Georgia, Office Depot was caught doing this in the Metro Atlanta area school districts.

There is some blame on Verizon too - how impersonal and automatic should they be with emergency services with throttling. No human supervision, or is that the problem?

 

[AgentAnonymous]

Unlimited and throttled are two pairs of shoes. Get your facts straight. Everybody here discusses "facts" of a contract nobody has seen so far.

They're not. Truly unlimited plans should have no throttling. The throttling effectively limits data by making it too slow to use.

 

[m0sher]

This is what we get when you end “net neutrality”.

Sorry but it is, and they don’t owe us any explanation they can do what they want.

 

[tzm41]

...Verizon skimping out on data has nothing to do with net neutrality either but here we are. Obama was the architect of net neutrality.. that’s why it was brought up.

And I find it funny that you are discussing your hatred of capitalism on this forum. Apple is a product of capitalism and the free market. The free market doesn’t have any flaws. If you don’t like a service move to another service. It’s easy, simple, and elegant.

I’m sure you’re a fan of socialism, which leaves everyone equally poor.

The free market doesn’t have any flaws… or maybe you need to retake ECON 101?

 

[Sedulous]

I could have sworn I just saw a Verizon advertisement about how their “mobile command” has been helping California firefighters deal with wildfire. Cannot seem to find it now.

 

[Dobbs2]

This is what we get when you end “net neutrality”.

Sorry but it is, and they don’t owe us any explanation they can do what they want.

This would have happened the same under Net Neutrality. This is because of throttled unlimited plans that were implemented when Net Neutrality was the law of the land. The only thing thats changed in this regard is you can't lodge a complaint to the FCC, but now use the FTC. This would have been the same outcome during Net Neutrality. I suggest you please read up on it.

What needs to happen is companies need to be forced to get rid of all unlimited plans that throttle because they aren't truly unlimited.

 

[NovemberWhiskey]

While I find it disgusting, why in the hell is the fire dept skimping? You plan for contingencies by having backups. If I absolutely need power, you can be sure I have a backup generator. I can guarantee you hedge funds have more than one backup for their internet connection.

Sounds like this is also the fault of those in charge of funding, and planning what services the fire dept has access to.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

It's funny how these kinds of stories aren't exactly uncommon, but you still run into Ben Shapiro type "The free market will totally fix it so the solution to everything is to reduce consumer protections" free market evangelists all the time*. It's kind of mind boggling how those types argue that all corporate anti-competitive and anti-consumer behavior is somehow because of unnecessary government regulation.

Oh and I'm not joking about Ben Shapiro, he genuinely believes that the anti-discrimination laws for businesses that were put up during the civil rights movement era were unnecessary as the market was going to fix racism in business anyway.

*At least if you try to keep away from left-leaning bubbles and hang out in places where the standard response to somebody admitting they're a conservative isn't to show them the door

 

[Jmausmuc]

NBCNews.com: No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn

Firefighters shouldn't be completely surprised about the "no pay, no data" policy from Verizon.

Wow, just wow.
[doublepost=1534927470][/doublepost]

It's funny how these kinds of stories aren't exactly uncommon, but you still run into Ben Shapiro type "The free market will totally fix it so the solution to everything is to reduce consumer protections" free market evangelists all the time*. It's kind of mind boggling how those types argue that all corporate anti-competitive and anti-consumer behavior is somehow because of unnecessary government regulation.

Oh and I'm not joking about Ben Shapiro, he genuinely believes that the anti-discrimination laws for businesses that were put up during the civil rights movement era were unnecessary as the market was going to fix racism in business anyway.

*At least if you try to keep away from left-leaning bubbles and hang out in places where the standard response to somebody admitting they're a conservative isn't to show them the door

I agree that this was irresponsible on Verizon’s part but it looks like the fire department didn’t choose the right plan to begin with.

And the fact that they had time for this whole email exchange makes it seem like time wasn’t a big issue, they could have just switched to the 99 Dollar Plan and would have had the command center operational in just a few minutes. Instead, it looks like they decided to have a lengthy discussion instead.

 

[Piggie]

Sorry, but if you NEED full data and you are a business that relies on it, then don't be tight with the plan you choose, then complain when you use what you agreed to pay for.

 

[quietstormSD]

I bet you if the fireman were surfing one of Verizon’s properties websites such as AOL or Yahoo instead of saving lives they would still have had a high speed connection.

 

[PJL500]

The content of this post has been deleted by the moderator due to the repeated use of expletives and constant references to grossly indecent acts. ("shower of c...s" and all the other unrepeatable references are not permissible.)

 

[Rocketman]

Verizon is a public utility with union workers. The fire department is a public utility with union workers. They are both procedural and bureaucratic because they have union workers.

Do you see any commonalities or problems? I thought not.

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

So customer support failed to identify the emergency for a SIM in a fire departments vehicle?
I think that could qualify for "failure to render assistance" by the customer support representative (yes, the individual) and typically is subject to very high fines and/or other penalties.

That the fire dept was incompetent in choosing their data plan is a different topic and needs to be addressed separately.

What I really don't understand is how companies can afford to treat customers with good credit histories on single urgent inquiries with a cash in advance policy, like they got anything to loose... In fact they will: The customer.

 

[OLDCODGER]

An unlimited internet plan - with a data cap, is on speed, not access!

The access is unlimited - not the amount of data at full speed.

 

[michelepri]

france and Italy offer ultra fast plans for €7n/ month that include 40 GB in 4G+. Can't believe Americans are paying in the hundreds for a few GB. I thought they had competition and all that

 

[centauratlas]

imagine living in a country where your emergency services can't even get decent internet access while trying to save lives lmao

Imagine living in a country where public officials don't bother to read about what they are signing up for before doing so.

You get what you pay for - and usually Verizon removes it, but they screwed up, but so did the government by not reading and understanding. If they'd paid for a proper plan for their use case, they wouldn't have needed to contact Verizon.

 

[wilsonlaidlaw]

I wonder how quickly the fire department will respond if there is a fire at Verizon's headquarters building. "Sorry Verizon but our fire trucks are throttled."

 

[NufSaid]

Verizon has a business to run. Sure they may have handled it poorly and the media whipped up a story, but the reality is that they got what they paid for.

Not sure why they shouldn't be paying for the higher plan (you know the unlimited unlimited) as the nature of their work is emergency so there will always be an emergency.

Yes....let's not miss they gaffed, but this "beat up evil corporation" because you are one that has had a customer service snafu with them (I particularly like them and think they deliver the best service by far).

 

[itguy06]

What needs to happen is companies need to be forced to get rid of all unlimited plans that throttle because they aren't truly unlimited.

They are truly unlimited data. Just not unlimited high speed data. 2 separate and distinct things.

 

[TroyBoy30]

users get an unlimited amount of data, but speeds are reduced when they exceed their allotment

what allotment? it's unlimited! lol

 

[groadyho]

Flipping disgusting. All the corporate welfare these companies get and this how they treat the populace, their customer base.
I'm not so sure the younger crowd who appears to have a different take on politics isn't right.

 

[4jasontv]

They are truly unlimited data. Just not unlimited high speed data. 2 separate and distinct things.

Word play! Because it’s legal! I get it. It sort of like when I tell the lady “you have a body, like Emma Stone.”

 

[MrGuder]

If you notice they didn’t apologize at all only that they should have done this or it was a Cust support mistake. I think they should have apologized or said they were sorry for the mistake.

 

[dewski]

Whichever side come down on net neutrality, this issue has nothing to do with it. I work with local government and I manage tons of ipads with "unlimited" verizon service. It is well known that they are really 25gb plans that slow to an unusable crawl after you hit the limit.