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FCC blasted for "shameful" ruling against cities and fire department:
The Federal Communications Commission is in another dispute with the fire department that fought for net neutrality rules after being throttled by Verizon during a wildfire response.
The Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, along with the cities of Los Angeles and New York, last week asked the FCC to extend a deadline for filing comments on the last remaining piece of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's net neutrality repeal. Pai had to seek another round of public comments on the net neutrality repeal and related deregulation of the broadband industry because federal judges who upheld the overall repeal ruled that Pai "failed to examine the implications of its decisions for public safety."
The fire department and cities said they couldn't meet the FCC's comments deadline because of the coronavirus pandemic. But the FCC refused to grant more time for filing comments in an order issued yesterday, resulting in condemnation from the Santa Clara County Fire Department, Democrats, and consumer advocates.
"When the Trump FCC repealed net neutrality two years ago, it completely ignored public safety," US Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) said. "Santa Clara County firefighters paid a steep price when Verizon throttled their data speeds as they fought the worst fire in California's history, and the County was helpless to resolve the issue... Now, when these same first responders of the Santa Clara County Fire Department are requesting a very reasonable extension to file their comments in the FCC's order because they are on the front lines in responding to the worst pandemic of our lifetimes, Chairman Pai has ignored their pleas. The FCC's decision is shameful, offensive, and dangerous. The FCC must rethink this decision immediately."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Thursday April 23 2020, @09:45AM (3 children)
I'd expect a tech site to do better. Network neutrality is about the network being neutral. It will deliver packets irrespective of the remote endpoint. It will not prioritise, for example, packets for Amazon Prime Video over ones for Netflix. Reducing speed of all customers when they go over a usage threshold is traffic management. It should be covered by your SLA.
Ironically, it sounds as if they actually want the opposite of network neutrality: they want traffic to and from them to be prioritised over other traffic.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday April 23 2020, @12:39PM (2 children)
Exactly. The fire department had a contracted data plan that included throttling when they hit a bandwidth limit. Morons on the internet kept saying this was a net neutrality issue. Did AT&T pay more for having packet priority over Verizon? No. That is what net neutrality is.
(Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Thursday April 23 2020, @02:52PM (1 child)
Yes, they *were*. When it was made clear to the fire protection district that it was capped, they upgraded to what they were told was a truly unlimited plan. No cap, no throttle. And then they still got throttled after a certain level of data usage. Yes, after assurances they were to never experience data plan restrictions again. And they found this out a few months later while fighting a huge fire (Mendocino Complex Fire [wikipedia.org]). While trying to keep a view of all of the firefighters, where they were, how the fire was progressing, weather forecasts and the like they fond their service throttled yet again.
Caught in that minefield, the FCC sought any kind of "justification" that could be found. As repeal of net neutrality was founded on changing the definition of what constituted telecommunication service versus information services (I think those were the terms), and the Titles (Tiltle II / Title III, IIRC) under which they were defined, Verizon and FCC found themselves backed into a corner. As I understand it, they are still scrambling to get out of the hole they dug themselves. Their creative attempt to redefine things so they could then force through net neutrality ended up painting themselves into a corner which they are now scrambling to get out of. At least that is my understanding from the news reports I've read over the years. Legalese makes my eyes glaze over, especially when it is designed to be impenetrable and open to interpretation by the parties that pushed for implementation. See also: regulatory capture.
Oh, and one can be certain that Pai at the FCC would grasp at any perceived error in the comments they filed. So, the comment filing needs to be precise and wiggle free or else they will be in no better position after filing their comments than before. From my perspective, Pai is just gish galloping [wikipedia.org] here. He has no interest in actually looking at the situation again, so anything that can be used to block comments seems to be A-OK in his book.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday April 24 2020, @12:17PM
That's a straightforward breach of contract. Nothing at all to do with network neutrality. We don't need extra regulations to require that you actually provide the service that you've agreed to provide in a contract.
sudo mod me up