SAN FRANCISCO – As wildfires burned over a million acres in California this summer, one San Francisco Bay Area fire department used its cellphone network to coordinate trucks and personnel from all over the state – until the department reached its data limit and its service provider slowed down data speeds.
This week, in documents submitted as evidence in a lawsuit over the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules, Santa Clara County Fire Chief Tony Bowden detailed how Verizon's rules over what happens when customers go over the data limits on its plans disrupted devices essential to his department for coordination of firefighting resources.
Bowden said in the declaration, first reported by "Ars Technica," that the Santa Clara County Fire Department had an unlimited data plan with Verizon but internet service slowed to 1/200th normal speed after the SCCFD reached 25 gigabytes of data usage.
Verizon refused to lift the restrictions on data speeds until the fire department upgraded to a more expensive service plan, Bowden said...MORE
3 comments:
“Can you hear me now?”
This is probably going to be an unpopular view, but here goes...
I'm actually on the side of Verizon. Admittedly, it's bad PR for them to not cut the department some slack when they are in the heat of the battle, but it is ultimately the job of the fire department to figure out how much data they need. Should Verizon have to provide data for everyone who needs it really bad? They have expenses of their own.
Net Neutrality is not the issue here. The issue is that the fire department wants something for nothing. They want the cell phone carrier to give them free data beyond what was purchased, and beyond what was in their contractual obligations to provide.
Net Neutrality is a trojan horse issue. It is something "Big Tech" companies like Google got Obama to push through for their own benefit. Big Tech companies like Google / YouTube who push tons of data out to their peers, then don't want to be forced to compensate those peers when that data clogs routers, switches and fiber optic lines. The peers are forced to upgrade their infrastructure at their own expense or risk losing their own customers. In those cases, they have only one option. Tell Google et al. to pay them, or throttle their traffic to avoid congestion. Net Neutrality makes this throttling illegal. In other words, it is illegal for network managers to properly manage their own network under net neutrality. Hence, it creates the very congestion (or slow lane) that it purports to prevent.
The Internet has always operated just nicely WITHOUT Net Neutrality. All the FCC did under the Trump administration was put it back the way it has always been.
Darren: Good to hear from you, and glad you are still reading this web site as Mr Dubois always has info not easily found elsewhere. Miss not listening to your show.
Soapweed in eastern Colo.
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