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

[barkomatic]

If you need consistently high speed as a mission critical operation, then that'll cost you more (as it should).

Until its your house burning or it's your life in danger--then it's a different story right? It's strange how something has to affect a person directly before they can understand why something like this is important -- whereas others can pick up that understanding by reading about it.

These agencies have budgets just like anyone. Should they pay a fortune for a data plan or buy more effective fire fighting equipment?

If Verizon were reasonable, and simply automatically lifted restrictions during disasters that would be one thing but to have to spend hours on the phone with them during an emergency is unacceptable.

It might be a few years, but the current climate will not persist forever and the reckless, greedy behavior of companies will come back to haunt them in the form of potentially extreme regulation in the future. Don't like the idea of Verizon having to provide unlimited data speed to a public safety official during a crisis? When then how about a law stating that carriers are required to provide unlimited free data to all public safety agencies?

You may think that's unlikely, but people are losing their patience over situations like this.

 

[VictorTango777]

Free market - Anything that's not illegal is ok.
You don't like it, don't buy it.

 

[ChromeAce]

When I get unlimited breadsticks at The Olive Garden, they don’t get increasingly smaller every time I ask for more.

 

[Southern Dad]

When a caller, especially a fire department tells Verizon that it is a life or death, like a wildfire, the right thing to do is open the data. Worry about the billing part, later. The same with someone needing unlimited data for a trip to the hospital. Give them an hour's worth. It costs the company nothing and sure gets better PR than Verizon Throttles While Home's Burn.

 

[ignatius345]

I don't really understand the issue here. If you are a fire fighter, especially in a massive fire fight effort, and you come upon a home on fire, or anything for that matter, do you need a text or a phone call from someone to put it out? I admit I didn't read the article linked, but it's very title suggest that they needed permission via phone call or text or some use of data, to fight a fire, that they couldn't get because of the throttling.

So THAT's why San Francisco burned in 1851, they were waiting on permission coming via pony express, but the company that owned the roads made the horses stop till they paid more.

Who's talking about "texts and phone calls"? Do you honestly believe that firefighting consists of just rolling up and randomly spraying water in the general direction of the fire? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, firefighters in 2018 use modern data sharing tools to map where the fires are, where and when the wind is forecast to blow, what aircraft are in the air and what they're seeing? How about evacuation efforts? Do you think it's possible that having a reliable data stream could help with that? But yeah, please tell us more about that fire one hundred and fifty years ago.

 

[teknikal90]

You know what’s really funny? Obama passing net neutrality and allowing Netflix to stream a mectric-ton of data for pennies on the dollar. A couple years later when things have settled down and he is sitting pretty with a multi-million dollar contract with Netflix for his own show. If that doesn’t set off alarms in your head I don’t know what will.

Yes, Obama shilled for Netflix and used the American people to do it.

Conjecture at best.
Come on, at least stay on topic.

 

[chucker23n1]

Verizon is a public utility with union workers.

Verizon is not public.

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

They also both have employees who breathe air.

 

[Swift]

If you need consistently high speed as a mission critical operation, then that'll cost you more (as it should).

Don't try to put some more order or even economic necessity onto this. There isn't any. This is the kind of corporatism that exists under fascism.
[doublepost=1534963399][/doublepost]

Conjecture at best.
Come on, at least stay on topic.

It wasn't a deal for Netflix. It was a deal for the next Netflix. For the next innovation. Pai (he is the ambassador from Verizon, no?) has given carte blanche to locking down the internet into fiefdoms.

 

[actripxl]

Allowing companies to advertise "unlimited" where they get to redefine that word however they like is FRAUD, plain and simple. It always has been, and this is not a net neutrality issue -- it's a false advertising one.

Nope, the plan is unlimited but the speed is not guaranteed after a certain point. There is absolutely nothing false about it, it is your responsibility as a consumer to choose the plan that is appropriate for you AND pay the price for it.

 

[itguy06]

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.”

It's not a word play. The plans are unlimited data plans. No mention or guarantee of speeds.

Go to a buffet and camp there from open to close and I guarantee you'll be asked to leave.
[doublepost=1534964798][/doublepost]

When I get unlimited breadsticks at The Olive Garden, they don’t get increasingly smaller every time I ask for more.

They often bring you fewer and fewer. Or as in the case of the never ending pasta bowls, the first one is a larger size and the next ones are a bit smaller.

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

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

I don't know how much that is in the US, but in EU they often throttle you down to 64kbit/s usually, which is practically unusable...

I call "unlimited LTE" with a cap below usable not "unlimited LTE". Because LTE implies a certain speed should be achieved. Unlimited data is more correct, but under a certain bandwidth it is effectively useless.
Also, a hard cap is a joke these days. The logic should be rather simple and is supported by todays networks:
o) Are you within your data allowance: Data Priority is 1: It will be processed first.
o) Are you outside your data allowance: Data priority is 2: First 192kbit each second (slot) processed instantly (192kbit/s guaranteed bandwith), rest will be queued till there is no priority 1 data that needs to be processed first or in next second (slot).

 

[cwanja]

I don't know how much that is in the US, but in EU they often throttle you down to 64kbit/s usually, which is practically unusable...

I call "unlimited LTE" with a cap below usable not "unlimited LTE". Because LTE implies a certain speed should be achieved. Unlimited data is more correct, but under a certain bandwidth it is effectively useless.
Also, a hard cap is a joke these days. The logic should be rather simple and is supported by todays networks:
o) Are you within your data allowance: Data Priority is 1: It will be processed first.
o) Are you outside your data allowance: Data priority is 2: First 192kbit each second (slot) processed instantly (192kbit/s guaranteed bandwith), rest will be queued till there is no priority 1 data that needs to be processed first or in next second (slot).

Not sure the plans in the UK, but no carrier advertises "unlimited LTE". It is just unlimited data, which is what you get and what the fire department got. It is not guaranteed speeds.

 

[beanbaguk]

Absolutely disgusting behaviour.

 

[Septembersrain]

Verizon. It'll only get worse. All these damn companies are so greedy. They'd let their own families rot for a dime.

 

[oldhifi]

I wish I could get TMobile at my house by cell tower I would dump Verizon

 

[CarlJ]

I admit I didn't read the article linked, but it's very title suggest that they needed permission via phone call or text or some use of data, to fight a fire, that they couldn't get because of the throttling. That's absurd.

What's absurd is being given actual data, willfully ignoring the data and assuming it supports your position, interpreting the title of the data through a filter to make it favorable to your position, and then pronouncing judgement. This is why we are seeing the downfall of informed conversation and debate. The linked article had absolutely NOTHING to do with data or throttling.

Go read the article - it's not what you think, and presents a thorny problem - before trying to use it to support your position.
[doublepost=1534970469][/doublepost]

The Fire Department may have chosen the wrong plan but Verizon refusing to immediately lift the cap in the name of public safety was a bad public relations move. I do agree that this had nothing to do with Net Neutrality or recent changes. Verizon has been throttling heavy users on its "unlimited" plans for quite a while.

This. Verizon has been essentially playing it off as "oh, sorry, one of our low level customer support reps behaved poorly." Verizon has fault here for not having policies in place to immediately escalate emergency requests from emergency services. Have a policy to take it however far up the chain is needed in order to turn the data bandwidth back up to full, at least for a few days, so the proper contract changes (or whatever) can be made.

The Fire Department should have selected a different plan. They should have made it clear they were getting a plan for emergency equipment, that needed to not slow to a trickle after hitting a limit. The government agency (city, county, state, whoever) should have negotiated deals specifically for use on emergency equipment, that would give them bandwidth and the assurances of uninterrupted service that such equipment needs.

But, in addition to this, Verizon ought to know that occasionally some plan that is vital for emergency services will end up falling through the cracks of such negotiations (the wording in the article sounds a bit like someone at a lower level semi-independently signed up the equipment for a plan, but perhaps that's not the case). And Verizon ought to have a playbook, on their end, for dealing with these situations, and it should be drilled into every customer service rep - "if you get a call that sounds like it could be this, flag it as urgent and pass it up the chain immediately". Getting the problem patched over immediately and the equipment working again, might cost Verizon $50 or thereabouts, and will give them substantial good PR, instead of a bunch of bad PR. Plus, it may save an occasional life.

I agree with everyone pointing out that this has little to nothing to do with Net Neutrality. It's beyond unfortunate that that was brought up as an argument. Net Neutrality is important. Tying the two together when they are not related just gives ammunition to those looking to shoot down Net Neutrality.

 

[orev]

[doublepost=1534897561][/doublepost]

It's not false advertising. I'm not defending Verizon, but the FD did know that their plan was subject to throttling. Why would a FD sign up for a plan that has the possibility of being throttled to unusable speeds?

Yes, the use of the term "unlimited" is false advertising. It doesn't matter that they have a bunch of micro-text explaining that unlimited really doesn't mean unlimited. They use the word "unlimited" because it sounds amazing and makes people want to sign up with their service. That is exactly the reason why it is fraud -- because the very meaning of the word, in plain English, is something that consumers want and think they are getting, but are not. Anything further about "throttled after..." are weasel words and smoke screens to hope you don't notice the blatant fraudulent claims.

Nope, the plan is unlimited but the speed is not guaranteed after a certain point. There is absolutely nothing false about it, it is your responsibility as a consumer to choose the plan that is appropriate for you AND pay the price for it.

See above. The use of the word "unlimited" is false advertising in plain English. It doesn't matter that they have micro-text that they know nobody reads where they redefine words to mean whatever they want. "Buy Round-Up! It doesn't cause cancer!* by 'doesn't cause cancer' we mean it does cause cancer"

 

[CarlJ]

Conjecture at best.
Come on, at least stay on topic.

Give 'em a couple pages, they'll get "Hillary's Emails" tied into this somehow. Smh.

 

[Edsel]

Who's talking about "texts and phone calls"? Do you honestly believe that firefighting consists of just rolling up and randomly spraying water in the general direction of the fire? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, firefighters in 2018 use modern data sharing tools to map where the fires are, where and when the wind is forecast to blow, what aircraft are in the air and what they're seeing? How about evacuation efforts? Do you think it's possible that having a reliable data stream could help with that? But yeah, please tell us more about that fire one hundred and fifty years ago.

Perhaps emergency management data systems should go back to packet radio systems which are not dependent on commercial cell tower systems. It might be cheaper and more reliable in the long run.

 

[cwanja]

Yes, the use of the term "unlimited" is false advertising. It doesn't matter that they have a bunch of micro-text explaining that unlimited really doesn't mean unlimited. They use the word "unlimited" because it sounds amazing and makes people want to sign up with their service. That is exactly the reason why it is fraud -- because the very meaning of the word, in plain English, is something that consumers want and think they are getting, but are not. Anything further about "throttled after..." are weasel words and smoke screens to hope you don't notice the blatant fraudulent claims.

You are getting unlimited data, just might not be at LTE speeds. Even before the cap, you might not get LTE speeds. It is just deliberately after the data cap (which is spelled out), you get lower speeds. They never advertised "unlimited LTE". I do not know a single carrier that does. If you have one, please provide it. It is called marketing. If you want to know what you are getting, read what you sign up for and understand it. No lawyer should touch this.

 

[Topher227]

The thing that bothers me the most is that people actually think things would be different if Net Neutrality was not repealed. Either way, this department would've been throttled.

I am so sick and tired of reading political statements which should have never been political statements.

 

[mikeheenan]

Can’t wait until T-Mobile and Sprint merge so uncarrier can really compete with these crooks/villains.

Why, to make the worst carrier in the US even worse?

 

[341328]

Don't try to put some more order or even economic necessity onto this. There isn't any. This is the kind of corporatism that exists under fascism.
[doublepost=1534963399][/doublepost]

Do you have any idea about IT and networks or are you just showing your ignorance?

 

[rick snagwell]

why does that OES strike team need wifi from their rigs on a brush fire?

 

[4jasontv]

It's not a word play. The plans are unlimited data plans. No mention or guarantee of speeds.

Go to a buffet and camp there from open to close and I guarantee you'll be asked to leave.
[doublepost=1534964798][/doublepost]

They often bring you fewer and fewer. Or as in the case of the never ending pasta bowls, the first one is a larger size and the next ones are a bit smaller.

It is word play. They say you have unlimited data. They say they have the fastest/a fast network. They imply unlimited at the fast speeds in their ads. You have to figure out on your own that they are not connected.