SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the Sorry,-your-contract-only-allows-a-garden-hose dept.
California wildfires: Verizon throttled data during crisis
Santa Clara County's fire chief has complained the company throttled an emergency vehicle's data rate to about 0.5% of its normal level.
The limit was enforced despite Verizon being told it was hampering efforts to tackle the wildfire.
Verizon said a mistake had been made.
However, it highlighted that the fire department had subscribed to a contract that stated data throughput would be cut after a usage limit had been hit.
"Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations," a spokeswoman told the Mercury News newspaper.
"In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us.
"We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward."
Verizon Throttled Fire Department's "Unlimited" Data During Calif. Wildfire
Verizon Wireless' throttling of a fire department that uses its data services has been submitted as evidence in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal net neutrality rules.
"County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP, Verizon," Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration. "This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services."
Bowden's declaration was submitted in an addendum to a brief filed by 22 state attorneys general, the District of Columbia, Santa Clara County, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and the California Public Utilities Commission. The government agencies are seeking to overturn the recent repeal of net neutrality rules in a lawsuit they filed against the Federal Communications Commission in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
"The Internet has become an essential tool in providing fire and emergency response, particularly for events like large fires which require the rapid deployment and organization of thousands of personnel and hundreds of fire engines, aircraft, and bulldozers," Bowden wrote.
Santa Clara Fire paid Verizon for "unlimited" data but suffered from heavy throttling until the department paid Verizon more, according to Bowden's declaration and emails between the fire department and Verizon that were submitted as evidence.
The throttling recently affected "OES 5262," a fire department vehicle that is "deployed to large incidents as a command and control resource" and is used to "track, organize, and prioritize routing of resources from around the state and country to the sites where they are most needed," Bowden wrote.
"OES 5262 also coordinates all local government resources deployed to the Mendocino Complex Fire," an ongoing wildfire that is the largest in California's history, Bowden wrote.
The vehicle has a device that uses a Verizon SIM card for Internet access.
"In the midst of our response to the Mendocino Complex Fire, County Fire discovered the data connection for OES 5262 was being throttled by Verizon, and data rates had been reduced to 1/200, or less, than the previous speeds," Bowden wrote. "These reduced speeds severely interfered with the OES 5262's ability to function effectively. My Information Technology staff communicated directly with Verizon via email about the throttling, requesting it be immediately lifted for public safety purposes."
Verizon did not immediately restore full speeds to the device, however.
"Verizon representatives confirmed the throttling, but rather than restoring us to an essential data transfer speed, they indicated that County Fire would have to switch to a new data plan at more than twice the cost, and they would only remove throttling after we contacted the Department that handles billing and switched to the new data plan," Bowden wrote.
Because the throttling continued until the department was able to upgrade its subscription, "County Fire personnel were forced to use other agencies' Internet Service Providers and their own personal devices to provide the necessary connectivity and data transfer capability required by OES 5262," Bowden wrote.
[...] Santa Clara apparently switched to the $99.99 plan, more than doubling its bill. "While Verizon ultimately did lift the throttling, it was only after County Fire subscribed to a new, more expensive plan," Bowden wrote in his declaration.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday August 22 2018, @09:08PM (5 children)
So the contract said one thing.
The marketing materials said unlimited.
Shouldn't this be a simple case of false advertising? Clearly deceptive and fraudulent.
I remember someone once nitpicking over what the definition of "is" is, or whether a cigar or other playing actually means sex. That seems as deceptive and dishonest as the "unlimited" data. Neither one should be trusted.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 23 2018, @01:42AM (3 children)
The entire gamut of "broadband" suppliers needs to be hammered with a 'truth in advertising' class action lawsuit. And, that suit needs to be vigorously pursued, all the way up through the court system.
It matters little whether your "broadband" is 2mb (in my case) or 2gb or 500tb - it it's what the supplier advertised, it's what you should be getting. In effect, what we have is, "If you pay premium prices, then we'll try to get you really fast speeds, sometimes, but if you actually use those fast speeds even a little, we'll cut you back to nothing."
For many people, 10mb is quite good enough. For other people, 50mb is good. For families, businesses, schools, neither of those is an option.
If the suppliers don't have the supplies they are offering for sale, then they need to be burnt. In no other business can you sell the same item to multiple people, then punish those people for not sharing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday August 23 2018, @02:10PM (2 children)
They can't be hit with a class-action from their customers because the fine print of all their service contracts says "no class action lawsuits allowed", and the Supreme Court has not only said that's totally fine, it's applies even if state laws ban that kind of rule. Your only options when dealing with these companies are:
1. Not use their service.
2. Go through a binding arbitration process where the company gets to pick the arbitrator (which I'm sure in no way affects the impartiality of that hearing), and all you can possibly win is what you paid the company for the service in question. Oh, and then they'll either throttle your service or cut it off completely, and there is still no legal recourse.
And that's true even if you're talking about something that's considered a public utility, like the telephone system.
Welcome to the US legal system post 2010 or so.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 23 2018, @02:21PM (1 child)
I am entirely unsatisfied with that legal nonsense, and it needs to be established that the Supremes aren't the final law. Congress can easily pass a law nullifying such clauses. If they did so, the Supremes could say nothing.
Unfortunately, congress got us into most of our messes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday August 23 2018, @02:40PM
Hey, leave Diana Ross out of this!
But yes, this is something Congress could conceivably fix, but chooses not to, for some reason [opensecrets.org].
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 23 2018, @06:42AM
TL;DR Their contracts stipulate they can change the details of the data plan one sided so they effectively can promise and sign on whatever they want and then deliver whatever they feel like. As for how that ever been made legal, the issue was that utility bills needed to change minor billing charges occasionally and renegotiating contracts with millions of customers was too impractical since it wasn't like people could switch to a different provider. That is, the original sin was not identifying them as monopolies then and their, nationalize the fuck out of them and make their "billing" officially the tax you can't help but pay that it already is.
So now congress is, again, avoiding the tough decision by reintroducing net neutrality. A shitty law meant to patch a hole in the shitty legal framework they broke and are unwilling to fix. Get it?