
Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data during wildfire - jamroom
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/
======
jrockway
This seems like the classic case of people relying on intuition instead of the
documented SLA. Verizon's plan should be assumed to be a 200Kbps plan that can
occasionally burst to 50Mbps. But someone tried it out, and mentally built the
model that it was an always-50Mbps plan. Then they were proven wrong during a
crisis.

I very much agree with other posters that "unlimited" is a very misleading
term. If the service runs at 200Kbps, then that's something like 65GB/month,
which is not an infinite amount of data. If Verizon sold two "unlimited"
plans, one that could be throttled and one that couldn't be, it would be very
clear to the customer why the 16TB/month (50Mbps * 1 month) plan was a lot
more expensive than the 65GB/month (200Kbps * 1 month) plan. But they hide it
all in the fine print, so anyone that doesn't carefully read the fine print
and extensively test the service doesn't actually know what they're getting.
This is unfortunate. I don't think it's a net neutrality issue (it's not like
they were throttled because the traffic was going to Amazon instead of
Google), but rather a truth-in-advertising issue.

~~~
anyfoo
And yet I am pretty sure that in Germany at least, that plan would not be
allowed to be called "Unlimited", no matter how fine the fine print ends up
being.

I miss those consumer protections a lot since I moved to the US. It sometimes
may seem to get a little bit silly (I'm not totally sure, but I think you are
not even allowed to say e.g. "the best pizza" in advertising, because how
would you prove that claim), but I easily prefer a little silliness over the
deliberately misleading claims here.

~~~
sundvor
Yep, if you use the word unlimited, and that's not what you're actually
providing, you're a liar. Pure and simple.

If this is common practice, then these companies are all a bunch of liars.

As opposed to other places in the world, truth in advertising is dead in the
US - and also Australia, for that matter.

Try using the word "free" in Norway if you're not prepared to offer that for
free with _zero_ strings attached, and see how far you get before feeling the
weight of the law. (And "zero strings" here means exactly that in the most
literal sense).

~~~
aplummer
> and also Australia, for that matter.

what? Australia has some of the strongest consumer protection laws - sometimes
I actually feel bad for the corporations...

There is a whole strict regulatory system for determining facts vs mere puff.

~~~
sundvor
I studied marketing law in Norway as part of marketing science before
switching back to tech and then moving down under; Australian marketing law is
very very relaxed compared to Norway.

~~~
aplummer
Really can you give examples? To give recent general advertising law examples
about how strict the standards bureau is, in Australia it’s illegal to show a
woman doing most of the housework, or a man being a bad father.

~~~
sundvor
Any ad or promotion that features the word "free".

Edit: actual example,
[https://coleslittleshop.com.au](https://coleslittleshop.com.au)

They are not free. You have to spend $30 to get one. The word _free_ is
perverted.

This would be illegal in Norway: [https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/lov-og-
rett/veiledninger-og...](https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/lov-og-
rett/veiledninger-og-retningslinjer/forbrukerombudets-veiledning-
prismarkedsforing#chapter-5-3)

~~~
reitanqild
> 5.3 Gratispåstander

> ”Gratis”, ”vederlagsfritt”, ”uten betaling” og lignende uttrykk må ikke
> benyttes i markedsføringen dersom gratisytelsen er betinget av kjøp av andre
> ytelser for å oppnå gratisytelsen.

translates more or less directly (using Google translate and then adjusting
slightly based on my 15+ years of experience with talking and writing mostly
Norwegian) to

5.3 "Free" Claims

"Free", "Free of charge," "Unpaid," and similar terms, may not be used in the
promotion if the free good or service is conditional upon purchase of other
benefits to achieve the free good or service.

~~~
sundvor
That's pretty spot on; thanks.

------
kodablah
> While fire department personnel thought they were already paying for "truly"
> unlimited data, Verizon said they weren't.

Despite the overarching issues here, what culpability is there when these
public safety services who build reliance on these private companies don't do
due diligence on what they use? We can all pull on heartstrings, say this
customer is special after the fact, bemoan that both Verizon and the fire
department have red tape making it a slower-than-necessary process, etc.

As a customer, I empathize with the fire department because it isn't always
clear to us what unlimited is. But in this environment, while Verizon has
fault here as does the general system, these public services need to do a bit
more to ensure they are getting what they expect. Net neutrality isn't going
to fix the "unlimited" wording issues or throttling as much as we'd like it
to. That needs fixing sure, but in the meantime these public services need to
get together and share info/plans/etc.

To the bigger problem...well, that's a different deal and not specific to this
anecdote.

~~~
Johnny555
Rather than complain that customers don't read the fine print, how about
removing throttling from the fine print and have companies advertise what they
are selling?

If they are selling an "unlimited" plan, then it should be unlimited (i.e.
without throttling of any kind)

If they are selling a "20GB then throttled to 128kbs speeds" plan, then call
it a "20GB plus" plan so everyone knows what they are buying.

~~~
rayiner
When you go to the page, you see three options:
[https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/unlimited](https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/unlimited)

"Unlimited 4G LTE Data" for $40

"Unlimited 4G LTE Data (22 GB)" for $50

"Unlimited 4G LTE Data (75 GB)" for $60

There is a little (i) symbol next to each one, with a mouse over box that
explains the throttling. The throttling is also explained if you click the
link "important plan info."

The first option could be clearer with a parenthetical, but with the three
right next to each other alongside the prices it's pretty clear what you're
buying.

~~~
jonafato
I disagree that it's clear. Words have meanings, and

> By "unlimited", we really meant "limited".

shouldn't be a valid defense for misleading consumers. The plan would be more
accurately described as "15GB 4G LTE Data". If the limits were stated more
prominently, the fire departments could have avoided confusion and worked with
Verizon or a competitor to get on a plan that wouldn't stop working at the
worst possible times. Verizon could have also avoided some bad press by just
waiving the fees and sorting things out later instead of demanding extra money
during an emergency.

~~~
rayiner
Your definition isn't accurate. That suggests that you don't get 4G speeds
after 15GB, which isn't the case.

------
thaumaturgy
I wonder how many people read the article to the end, let alone the addendum
filed by SCCFD [1].

This has nothing to do with the definition of "unlimited" or the fine print
for it. OES 5262 (that's a CalOES resource) had sufficient bandwidth for fire
response needs up until the Mendocino Complex incident, when their connection
was strangled so badly that it wasn't just slow, it was unusable, during a
major state disaster. This put a lot of lives directly at risk.

Their brief is arguing in support of the lawsuit against the FCC that's
attempting to overturn the repeal of net neutrality. They argue that in a
deregulated environment, providers like Verizon can and will use disasters to
strong-arm responding agencies -- state and local governments -- into paying
higher fees. This is well supported by Verizon's emails, which flatly refused
to assist SCCFD until they ponied up the extra money for a plan upgrade that
they didn't need until the Mendocino fire.

The article also adds that the FCC's removal of net neutrality removed the
ability for SCCFD to complain to the FCC about this behavior.

A few people are saying that maybe the fire department should have more
carefully reviewed their plan information, or they should have had more
qualified people in IT. Well, maybe. I looked up Eric Prosser's LinkedIn
profile, and he's spent his whole career in management. Maybe there was a
technical issue, or maybe it was just an oversight.

But ultimately it's hard for agencies to attract strong technical talent,
especially in Silicon Valley, where so much of that talent is working on the
much more interesting problems of squeezing more money out of advertising or
debt collections. If you want your first responder agencies to have working
technology, get involved. Somewhere in each of those agencies is a human being
who may not think about things like bandwidth throttling as carefully as HN's
nerds.

[1]: [https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fire-
depa...](https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fire-department-
net-neutrality.pdf)

------
kauffj
This is outrageous, but it's outrageous because it is legal to describe
something as unlimited that is in fact no such thing.

The reasonable thing here would be to simply require companies to be honest
and state the actual bandwidth they provide.

This issue seems orthogonal to net neutrality; the real problem is in allowing
companies to mislead.

~~~
briandear
Is the data capped? When they exceed their data cap, does the service shut
off?

~~~
pixl97
If you went to an unlimited buffet and found out that you could only get one
'full' plate, then every other plate could only have one small piece of food
and only once every hour, you'd be yelling about false advertising.

If we want truth in advertising, then the banners would say

"Unlimited 200Kbps Internet, capable of 25GB of 4G burst speed"

Which is much different than

"Unlimited 4G Internet", then a bunch of small text about the limits.

------
johngalt
" _Critical emergency services fix now! Huge problem!_ wait what? It costs
$60? Well.... Let me see..."

It never ceases to amaze me how worked up people can get over an outage, yet
still balk at tiny costs. This puts me in the unenviable position of defending
Verizon here. People are painting this as Verizon being usurious, and not as a
lack of proper capacity planning on the fire departments part. What is the
actual problem here?

\- Verizon wasn't price gouging or changing the terms during a time of
emergency.

\- The emergency services certainly are important, which is precisely why they
should be buying the appropriate services for their needs. Rather than blaming
Verizon for not giving them a free ride.

Verizon has stated terms on their service levels, and what can be expected.
They offered to change the service level instantly for the published price. No
penalties or special fees etc... While their "Unlimited" verbiage may be
misleading to the uninformed, any professional ops person would understand and
expect this.

Consumer level services built on light usage are a constant thorn in the side
of operations people everywhere. It creates extremely flawed expectations on
the business side for what reliable/high usage systems cost. I guarantee there
was someone in the chain who wanted proper planning on this wireless data
service, and was shut down with "whatever, I don't care about all your tech
babble just get the $40 plan it works fine for [other use case]." Now rather
than take responsibility for the operational failure, the organization blames
a vendor for not providing free additional services.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
"Unlimited" is not just misleading. It is an outright lie. It is completely
false and Verizon knows it is false but continues to call it that because they
know it will fool some of their customers.

------
drawkbox
Look at the bright side, at least Verizon doesn't run the water utility. The
water companies weren't throttling down water asking for price gouging.

ISPs like Verizon just run the network utility, that only the ISPs don't think
is a utility.

The reason ISPs fought so hard to end net neutrality, remove privacy
protections and remove them from FCC oversight was to remove ISPs and the
network utility from Title II / common carrier protections which make them a
utility.

ISPs know they are a utility but only want the benefits [1] not the service
and legal requirements of being a privileged utility and local monopoly.

> _Broadband providers have spent years lobbying against utility-style
> regulations that protect consumers from high prices and bad service._

> _But now, broadband lobby groups are arguing that Internet service is
> similar to utilities such as electricity, gas distribution, roads, and water
> and sewer networks. In the providers ' view, the essential nature of
> broadband doesn't require more regulation to protect consumers. Instead,
> they argue that broadband's utility-like status is reason for the government
> to give ISPs more money._

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-want-to-
be-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-want-to-be-utilities-
but-only-to-get-more-money-from-the-government/)

~~~
kalleboo
Water utilities also generally do not offer "unlimited water" plans (unless
you're coke/nestle I guess)

~~~
drawkbox
> _Water utilities also generally do not offer "unlimited water" plans (unless
> you're coke/nestle I guess)_

True, it is a physical resource as well but they aren't throttling water and
they meter it, so if you use less you don't have to pay for that unused water,
but if you use more or an almost unlimited need, you pay for that usage.

ISPs get data overage charges after data caps but I don't get money back when
I don't use up all my plan. ISPs have ISP-friendly metering now with data caps
and throttling, I pay if I go over but I don't get money back if I use less.
Or they offer unlimited plans that are throttled earlier than people want to
oversell their capacity.

Water isn't throttled and limited if you are paying but it isn't truly
unlimited, neither is bandwidth/capacity, but bandwidth/capacity is more
unlimited than water is as expansion is easier. All cable ISPs have to do is
take more of the line dedicated to TV channels and use them for data and
expand capacity, but they are choosing to nickel and dime and keep capacity
low to keep data caps, throttling, overselling capacity, tax dollars and
invest as little as possible in those areas rather than offer innovative jumps
in bandwidth required for progress.

~~~
therealdrag0
I doubt it's trivial to add more capacity to ISPs. Also in places like
California where there are water shortages some municipalities ARE have rates
that increase dramatically as your usage goes up.

~~~
drawkbox
> _I doubt it 's trivial to add more capacity to ISPs._

Running new lines takes time sure, but it is very easy to dedicate more of the
line to data over tv channels which take immense data.

With DOCSIS 3.1 they can multiplex but more should be used for data over
television and capacity is easily added.

Hard wired broadband is just milking it until 5G and by the time we get to 6G
will be dead like phone lines so wirelessly adding capacity will be easier.

My guess is ISPs are just not wasting time running lines, especially the ones
that will push people to 5G and future specs when those are out.

------
wmf
_County Fire believes it is likely that Verizon will continue to use the
exigent nature of public safety emergencies and catastrophic events to coerce
public agencies into higher-cost plans, ultimately paying significantly more
for mission-critical service_

So I guess they want to use net neutrality to force cellular carriers to offer
enterprise-grade service at consumer prices. That's what everyone wants, of
course, but it's rare to see someone actually say it.

~~~
kingbirdy
> "Our understanding from Eric Prosser, our former Information Technology
> Officer, was that he had received approval from Verizon that public safety
> should never be gated down because of our critical infrastructure need for
> these devices."

Perhaps the ITO was wrong, but it seems they had reason to believe they would
get this level of service per an agreement with Verizon (rather than forcing
them as you say), and it was Verizon who messed up their end of the deal.

~~~
awesrdtfcvyg
I made a comment about a relevant experience we had at my current employer.[1]
In short, we switched from a multi-device plan with a shared 60 GB cap to a
multi-device plan with an 'unlimited' data cap, our IT department was
genuinely surprised when devices were throttling after 22 GB per device. Also,
Verizon wanted so much money to increase a device's cap, it was cheaper to
purchase additional hotspots, pay to add them to the plan, and cannibalize the
SIMs when current devices start throttling.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17814698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17814698)

------
tjohns
Verizon's billing practices aside, I'm surprised they're not using FirstNet
(firstnet.gov / firstnet.com), since I thought the whole point of that project
is to create a cellular network specifically for emergency services.

It also looks like FirstNet has a _slightly_ more generous data overage policy
for their "unlimited" plan:

> "Unlimited Plan may not exceed 22GB a month for three consecutive months;
> AT&T reserves the right to require Customer to move to a FirstNet
> Mobile—Pooled Plan if usage exceeds this limitation."

Does anybody know how widely FirstNet has actually been adopted?

~~~
StudentStuff
FirstNet's spectrum has yet to be deployed significantly, and in that part of
California AT&T lags for coverage. Band 14 (the spectrum FirstNet uses)
devices are few and far between, let alone a cellular data gateway that
supports that band. It took years for band 12 to be available on cellular data
gateways, I think band 71 will likely make an appearance before band 14 gets
hardware support.

------
parliament32
I think the biggest issue that's being brought to light here is how
"unlimited" plans are pretty much never "unlimited".

Despite the fine print, how is this not false advertising? Can I name a
product anything I want and bury whatever conditions in the fine print?

~~~
Zarath
It is false advertising, simple as that. Nobody is going to do anything about
it though, because our politicians are bought. Best thing you can do is
boycott and hope they will change.

------
DoctorOetker
When a Verizon facility catches fire, may the water facility throttle the
water supply, demanding upgrades? Can the fire department throttle attention
for Verizon's troubles during such a fire?

------
modells
If corporations are willing to suicide the planet and potentially billions of
lives for dirty energy, why would a telco not sabotage health and safety
services if it made them more money?

------
driverdan
Wouldn't net neutrality preclude them from receiving special treatment? If
there's an exception for emergency services it's not neutrality.

~~~
oarsinsync
I don't think so, as demonstrated by the fact that end users can pay different
monthly fees for different speeds. Net neutrality focuses not on end-user
access, but on content providers, and ensuring that all of them are treated
equally.

------
mirimir
Maybe fire departments should throttle responses to fires at Verizon
facilities ;)

------
logfromblammo
My biggest question is why fire departments are using consumer-level services
over commercial-licensed radio bands when they could be using SDRs with the
spectrum specifically allocated for land mobile communications for public
safety and emergency services in the 1m to 10m VHF band?

~~~
thaumaturgy
Well, it's complicated. The short answer is, "because nobody's come up with a
better solution yet."

Off the top of my head:

In big incidents, there's a ton of radio traffic flying around at different
frequencies. You have to make sure they don't interfere. Cellular handles this
pretty well out-of-the-box.

There are myriad electronics and devices in use, including wireless printers
and laptops, so whatever you come up with has to play nice with wifi and also
offer a wifi<->your_thing bridge. Again, cellular hotspots do this out of the
box.

Bandwidth is really important. GIS is a big part of operations, so that's a
lot of high-resolution map tiles flying through the air, and when it takes
time to load or print a map, it can really jam up operations. Seconds count.

It needs to be maintainable by a large number of people. If there are just
three people in the whole state who know how to troubleshoot and fix your
system, it's no good.

It can't be stupidly, ridiculously expensive.

It has to work in all kinds of terrain. IC can't just squirt signals through
hills.

Somebody could probably invent a solution that does all those things.

But they haven't yet.

~~~
leni536
> Bandwidth is really important. GIS is a big part of operations, so that's a
> lot of high-resolution map tiles flying through the air, and when it takes
> time to load or print a map, it can really jam up operations. Seconds count.

Is there a reason that map tiles have to be accessed real time over the
Internet and can't be update for eg. daily and kept on a local hard drive? Is
it too large? For a fire department it could be only the area that they
operate in.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Mostly technical effort. I'm not sure what fire/OES uses for GIS. The system
we use does have a locally-hosted option, but that requires someone knowing
how to update it and what to do if the server stops behaving.

> _For a fire department it could be only the area that they operate in._

Not really. Mutual aid happens often enough that that's not really a bet you
want to make.

Especially in the case of CalOES resources, which are sent from disaster to
disaster all over the state.

~~~
leni536
> Not really. Mutual aid happens often enough that that's not really a bet you
> want to make.

Well in that case it could fall back to Internet access, I guess. Just keep
the map of the local area as cache.

------
hedora
The fact that they started throttling at all during an emergency is criminal.
Charges would be filed if this had been any other type of service (mechanics
raising rates, gas price gouging, landlines refusing service without
additional payment, an intentional 911 outage, etc, etc).

Either we need more regulation, or the county should withdraw Verizon’s right
of way. There needs to be severe recourse when public utilities engage in
hostage taking.

------
TechBrendan
To me as i build cell phone towers for many carriars i will say this. If each
carriar would understand or take in the matter of fact as what do they call
unlimited i would like to figure that out. First off text and voice and calls
are unlimited but data is never unlimited because there will always be a cap
hello people and businesses out there. If we were all smart and we all went to
court on this unlimited plan issue we would all be rich. If a plan cost $100
and its unlimted that means there should be no cap on data ussage any time you
have an account. I will always also question a cell phone store about
unlimited data because it is so totaly false really it is. People have to
really look at how much data do we use each day while we have a cell phone. I
laugh all sorry to say i know i am in the cell phone world my self i do shake
my head alot and i will say this. When or in time will agencies figure this
unlimited plans out the right way and not screw people or lower there speeds.

------
scarface74
Nothing I’m about to write is meant to excuse Verizon.

There are two types of “unlimited” when it comes to cell phone plans in the
US.

\- After you go over a certain limit, your data speeds are immediately
throttled down to a lower, usually unusable rate.

\- after you go over a certain limit, your data is “deprioritized” to let less
heavy users in the same area have full speed.

In the 2nd case, you could go a whole month without being noticeable throttled
if you aren’t in a congested area.

Unlike wired internet, you can’t just “build more capacity” over the air.
There is a theoretical limit on how much bandwidth you can have at a certain
frequency range and some frequency ranges aren’t suitable for communications
(I know I’m butchering the explanation).

The second definition of “unlimited” is defensible because of the reality of
delivering data over the air. What Verizon calls “unlimited” is not.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
There is only one defensible definition of "unlimited" and that is:

\- Your data is given the same priority for the entire duration of the plan
regardless of how much is used. Bandwidth may be decreased because of
congestion, but no specific action will be taken to deprioritize it based on
usage level.

Wireless ISPs may not want to sell plans like that, but that doesn't mean you
can redefine the word "unlimited" to mean something different from what it
plainly means. If QOS measures are specifically targeted based on whether your
usage has crossed a certain threshold, that is clearly a limit.

------
hexsprite
I mean, I get that this looks bad. But they were using a lot of data and they
had to switch from a $39 plan to a $99 one. That's still not a lot of money
for such a service.

~~~
tw04
Not even remotely accurate.

First off, they used 25GB of data - that's not what any rational person would
consider "a lot" for an emergency service fighting a wildfire. It's not even
"a lot" in the generic sense in 2018 in any country that isn't the US or Cuba.

Second, the new plan is $99 for the first 20GB, and $8/GB thereafter. In other
words, just to get back to baseline they would be at $139 which they blew
through in a day or two. So you're talking several thousand dollars vs. $39
for a resource that costs Verizon nearly nothing to provide during an
emergency such as this.

~~~
whatpad
Does the fact that the government seems to have done nearly no due diligence
regarding capacity planning play a factor in your criticism of Verizon? They
relied on one emergency device with one communication link and thought $39/mo
was sufficient apparently. That's silly and incompetent for any IT
professional.

~~~
andymal
The article makes it seem like Verizon told them it would not be throttled.
"We made a mistake in how we communicated with our customer about the terms of
its plan"

------
_bxg1
Wait, so what you're telling me is, in the absence of accountability, telecom
corporations _won 't_ just act in good faith?

------
js2
Why are wireless plans sold by data instead of by bandwidth, like wired plans?
Don't sell me 20 GB/mo, rather sell me 1.5 Mbps min capacity with the ability
to burst if the network isn't congested. It's the bandwidth which is the
constrained resource. Obviously there might sometimes be physical factors that
prevent even the minimum.

------
nickodell
>Verizon's throttling was described in fire department emails beginning June
29 of this year, just weeks after the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules
took effect.

Does throttling in this manner violate network neutrality rules? The 25GB/mo
cap is enforced in a way that is neutral to applications or users.

~~~
oarsinsync
If they provide services that do not count against the 25GB/mo cap (e.g.
Verizon's own video streaming service) while other competing services (e.g.
Netflix) do, then probably, yes.

If not, then probably not, no.

------
DINKDINK
I wonder if this article is being pushed by FirstNet[1] to sow public ire at
Verizon.

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2018/07/29/firstnet-att-
surveillanc...](https://theintercept.com/2018/07/29/firstnet-att-
surveillance/)

------
walshemj
And why are there not telecoms contingency plans for natural disasters? where
civilian subs would get put to the back of the line or turned off entirely

I know some one who did that for BT planning for various civil disasters
nuclear melt downs etc - went on some interesting courses apparently.

------
orf
The oes 5262 if anyone is interested:

[http://s239.photobucket.com/user/smokeybehr/library/Fire%20a...](http://s239.photobucket.com/user/smokeybehr/library/Fire%20and%20EMS/oes%205262?sort=3&page=1)

------
a1exus
"unlimited" _MUST_ be unlimited, not Verizon unlimited, or any other
unlimited!

------
tomohawk
This is actually an argument against net neutrality.

If critical services are to use the internet for comms, then shouldn't these
services get higher quality of service?

And shouldn't this higher quality cost more?

------
qiqing
It sounds like a good time for the fire department to switch to Project Fi.
Would be good publicity for Project Fi if that happens.

They're upfront about exactly what you're buying. No illusions.

~~~
mark212
Many public safety agencies go with Verizon because they’re the only carrier
that has service out in the middle of nowhere. These fires aren’t in San Jose,
they’re all over the state. California fire pulls from local agencies when the
wildfires get massive and rely on exactly these kinds of mobile command trucks
to coordinate the efforts.

Project Fi is a joke when it comes to coverage.

I truly don’t see why Verizon didn’t just waive the caps for this one SIM
card. Ridiculous and it’s a huge PR shitstorm for them. (Not that I’m crying,
they suck.)

~~~
mywittyname
Verizon also owns the lower-frequency bands that are better able to penetrate
buildings.

~~~
delbel
I think there is an entire 100mhz frequency band chunk just for emergency
services. It should be the other way around, when there is no emergency
Verizon should be able to use this (35 mi LTE at 600mhz anyone?) and when
there is an emergency, it should be exclusive to emergency services.

The military should be running these forest fires anyway with a dozen C130/727
flying non-stop around the country.

------
super_trooper
Well, sure. It's not like a human is on the other end checking the final "ok"
before throttling somebody's data speed because they have exceeded some
threshold.

------
toss1
Cut through all the fine legal crap arguments here.

1) Verizon and their ilk are happy to blatantly misrepresent their offerings
(and no, fine print footnotes/end notes don't count).

2) Verizon and their ilk, far from being decent corporate citizens and coming
to the aid of firefighters, DO NOT CARE care if their misrepresentation gets
people killed, as long as they can extract their maximum toll.

The business model is not to provide better service in a competitive
environment, it is to capture the regulatory agencies so that they can extract
the maximum rents, regardless of consequences.

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flashgordon
This has _gotta_ be the last straw right towards classiying ISPs as utilities?
Or is there a lobby for this too?

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benlorenzetti
I can't use every gear ratio on my 18-speed bike but I'm not upset by this
relevation.

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jacob019
I disdain Pajit's FCC, but I fail to see what this incident has to do with net
neutrality.

~~~
hedora
The article points out that as a (probably intentional, I think) side effect
of the network neutrality appeal, it is no longer possible for the fire
department to file a complaint about this with the FCC

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magoon
The real problem with the “throttling” is that it slows it down to
uselessness.

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appleflaxen
internet needs to be made into a public utility.

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RIMR
>Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was
actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and
essential emergency services

Interfering with emergency services is a felony. Whoever signed off on
throttling them after learning that doing so would inhibit crisis-response
ought to be arrested.

~~~
whatpad
Armchair grandstanding.

If an EMT asks a bystander for help and he refuses, he did not commit a crime.

~~~
wtallis
The situation with Verizon is more like a case of an EMT asking a bystander to
get out of the way, which the bystander absolutely has an obligation to comply
with. But it's complicated by the fact that Verizon isn't just a bystander but
a company that had an existing contract with the fire department, and had
previously been informed that their throttling was causing problems.

