Facing 'Net Neutrality' Criticism, Verizon Suddenly Lifts Data Caps On All Public Safety Workers (siliconvalley.com) 138
An anonymous reader writes:
Verizon testified Friday before a California State Assembly committee about why its "throttling" of county firefighters was completely unrelated to net neutrality. Then they surprised everyone by announcing that they were lifting all data caps on public safety workers with unlimited data plans, including federal justice agencies like the FBI, CIA and Secret Service.
Verizon claimed this was completely unrelated to the fact that 13 California Congressmen are now demanding that the FTC investigate Verizon's throttling of firefighters battling California's 290,692-acre wildfire. "It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Meanwhile, the California Professional Firefighters, which represents more than 30,000 firefighters and emergency personnel, came out in support of a strict new California law that restores net neutrality provisions, saying their group had "come to conclude that if net neutrality is not restored, the effect could be disastrous to the public's safety."
One county fire chief even testified this was the third time in eight months they've been throttled by Verizon.
Verizon claimed this was completely unrelated to the fact that 13 California Congressmen are now demanding that the FTC investigate Verizon's throttling of firefighters battling California's 290,692-acre wildfire. "It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Meanwhile, the California Professional Firefighters, which represents more than 30,000 firefighters and emergency personnel, came out in support of a strict new California law that restores net neutrality provisions, saying their group had "come to conclude that if net neutrality is not restored, the effect could be disastrous to the public's safety."
One county fire chief even testified this was the third time in eight months they've been throttled by Verizon.
Until this all blows over... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Until this all blows over... (Score:5, Insightful)
Something is a good idea for everyone?
Can't have that! We'll just put it in as a special carve-out for some group that people can't say NO to - such as teachers, firemen, police, etc. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES do it for the average citizen on an equal and equitable basis.
. . .
Always ALWAYS vote against carve-outs. All you are doing is ensuring the general public doesn't get whatever it is.
Re:Until this all blows over... (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh... I don't object to them providing firefighters, law enforcement, or other similar groups some kind of special consideration. Like if they find some way to prioritize those people when things are jammed up, that seems fine and reasonable.
But I think this event just highlights the fact that cell carriers and ISPs run their businesses as though they're providing entertainment services. They don't seem to recognize that they're providing vital telecommunication infrastructure. So often, the Internet gets treated like, "Oh that's just how people access Facebook and Netflix."
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See Wireless Priority Service
https://www.fcc.gov/general/wi... [fcc.gov]
https://www.dhs.gov/wps-faq [dhs.gov]
Re:Until this all blows over... (Score:5, Insightful)
But they have paid for it. Plan says "UNLIMITED".
It's crazy how we are so used to the word games now, unlimited actually means something different for every plan AND every provider, and we just accept it.
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How would a completely honest person market a service that has technical terms that my mom doesn't understand and yet some people abuse.
It's clear that they wouldn't use the term "unlimited" to describe a service which is deliberately limited. They could call their plans e.g. small, medium, and large which would be immediately familiar to our fast-food culture. But "unlimited" is a blatant lie. It was designed to be fraudulent.
Re: Until this all blows over... (Score:2)
But "unlimited" is a blatant lie.
No, it's not. It's a statement about how much you can download, not how fast you can download it.
By your logic no plan could ever be unlimited. If I have a 20 megabit plan which is never throttled, and I download 24/7 for a month, I can transfer about 6 and a half terabytes. So 6.5 terabytes is the limit of that plan. See, not unlimited!
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No, it's not. It's a statement about how much you can download, not how fast you can download it.
How much you can download is limited by how fast you can download it. The two things are intimately related.
Re: Until this all blows over... (Score:2)
Obviously. That's what I said; by your definition no plan could ever be unlimited. Pay attention. If you're going to be a pedant about the word "unlimited" then the word itself is useless since everything in this universe has some kind of limit.
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"It's "great ideas" like this that destroyed Venezuela over the course of a few years."
If by "great ideas" you mean international sanctions.
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Why more sanctions wont help venezuela :
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018... [foreignpolicy.com]
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Re: phantomfive = fake name massive human fail (Score:2)
Re: I'm not, it's an a-hole impersonating me (Score:2)
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Then the caps come back.
That's because too many people are focusing on the wrong problem. The problem is not net neutrality (or lack thereof).
The problem is lack of competition. If there was genuine competition for Internet service there would be no need for net neutrality regulations. If people had more than one choice for Internet service, throttling, data caps and all the other bullshit would disappear overnight.
People need to start demanding that the phone/cable oligopolies be forced to open up their networks to allow compe
Re:Until this all blows over... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then the caps come back.
That's because too many people are focusing on the wrong problem. The problem is not net neutrality (or lack thereof).
The problem is lack of competition.
I shake my head at the number of idiots who think throttling cell data in this manner is a net neutrality issue.
Re: Until this all blows over... (Score:2)
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The solution for this "problem" is for cities to negotiate a better service level. This is business-as-usual elsewhere e.g., first rights to diesel fuel supplies, etc.
And/or to not use consumer services for emergency communication(!)
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The solution for this "problem" is for cities to negotiate a better service level. This is business-as-usual elsewhere e.g., first rights to diesel fuel supplies, etc.
And how would they do that? If you are a fire company from a small town with a limited number of cell phone companies, how much negotiating power would you have? Not much. They have to accept whatever plans are offered. Now if they were the city of LA, they might have more negotiating power.
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"The problem is not net neutrality (or lack thereof)."
Obligatory paraphrase: “When I use the word net neutrality,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make that term mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”
Re: Until this all blows over... (Score:2)
If people had more than one choice for Internet service, throttling, data caps and all the other bullshit would disappear overnight.
The only way you make throttling and data caps to go away is by expanding capacity. That takes time, and money. I would agree that competition could help in the long run but there's no way it's happening "overnight".
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Actually, I read it elsewhere over a day ago in traditional media (and not from the source quoted in this story). So, /. isn't the only place to cover this. Sorry.
FirstNet coming soon (Score:3)
Good for them for doing this, but it's worth pointing out that the upcoming FirstNet [firstnet.gov] infrastructure (and AT&T won the contract [firstnet.com]) should hopefully mitigate the chances of this affecting responders like this again in the years to come.
It was bad (and bad PR) for Verizon to let this happen in the first place; given that alone, hopefully it won't happen again.
Re: FirstNet coming soon (Score:2)
There is no such thing as "your own Internet". If you're going to be abusive, at east use the correct terminology. Actually, don't be abusive, it makes you look like a spotty teenager.
Also, they were paying their bills, Verizon just weren't delivering. The cap was without warning, not based on anything in writing and originally denied by the company.
When the lives of millions of registered voters are at stake, politicians are going to lay attention.
Unrelated Subjects (Score:2)
It wouldn't be the first time politics caused a change unrelated to the problem. Don't get me wrong, Net Neutrality is the correct path for the internet, but it has nothing to do with throttling when your data runs out.
Well almost nothing, if you could still access Netflix at full rate, while out of data, then yes, that is a Net Neutrality violation.
Overall I'm fine with public safety workers getting no data caps, as long as all providers do it. It just means less taxes being paid to pay the public safety
Re: Unrelated Subjects (Score:2)
I'd use a variant of the divide by X model.
There are several forms, staring with Weighted Round Robin, but basically if you have X% of the total downstream pipe, you are allocated X% of the total upstream pipe. Anything you don't use gets shared with the others.
In the case of emergency services, I would argue a case for RSVP. This protocol guarantees a certain amount of bandwidth end-to-end and is designed for this kind of emergency use. I think the fire services should have to pay a sensible amount for suc
Government Citizen (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Yes we know, you should be ashamed that you deceived yoru citizen customers but HOW DARE you deceive the government or its entities!
Fun fact, had those millions of other "deceptions" been looked at by the government that cares so much we would not need something like this to get our attention. There is a reason why politicians do not really care that much about their voters.
Data caps are a net neutrality issue? (Score:2)
I thought net neutrality had to do with throttling based on destination, rather than on monthly usage. Which situation happened to the firefighters?
Re:Data caps are a net neutrality issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality of the situation is that the fire departments are solely responsible for ensuring that the equipment and services they require on their rigs are in place. In the case of SCCFD, they had the wrong goddamn plan and/or they failed to understand the terms of the plan. They were (are) public safety plans available from Verizon that exclude throttling. SCCFD did not purchase it. It's their responsibility as much as the hose on the truck is their responsibility.
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In the case of SCCFD, they had the wrong goddamn plan and/or they failed to understand the terms of the plan. They were (are) public safety plans available from Verizon that exclude throttling. SCCFD did not purchase it.
That's not true. At least not according to a statement made by Verizon at the time this first hit the news.
According to Verizon, *ALL* of their plans include throttling once you hit a certain limit.
Here's what they said in one of their e-mails to the fire department:
" All unlimited data plans offered by Verizon have some sort of data throttling built-in"
Re: Data caps are a net neutrality issue? (Score:2)
Your quote disproves your premise. First you say that all of their plans throttle, then you quote them saying that all of the unlimited plans get throttled. Those are two completely different things.
They do offer plans with set data caps, which do not throttle. If you use more than your allotted data for the month, instead of being throttled you get charged for extra data by the gigabyte. This seems like a much better option for this specific use-case.
Re:Data caps are a net neutrality issue? (Score:5, Informative)
Volunteer firefighter and programmer.
I believe you and others have been decieved by Verizon.
Fire departments have a cap on monthly useage for normal emergency patterns and non emergency related internet use . IF we watch to much netflix, youtube, send to many emails.... WTFever then we are and should be capped.
But the momemnt we inform the ISP we have a public emergency usage requirement then the ISP is supposed to rip off that cap and give us everything we need until the emergency is over. I beleive that the fire department even mentioned that clause to the verizon rep and in their public information release.
It is effectively an insurance policy that Verizon failed to honor and instead they forced the fire department to pay more to get the service that was requireded
If our usege goes beyond our agreed upon service level agreement on a regular basis then the ISP is supposed to tell us we have to step up to another plan.....at the end of a 12 month cycle
the all the time unlimited plans that Verizon mentioned are for larger Fire Department that need unlimted all the time. Lower tier plans for smaller fire departments still have the public emergency use terms that give us unthrottled unlimited data during an emergency
Re: Data caps are a net neutrality issue? (Score:2)
My understanding is pretty much as you say plus the failure to honour comes only after NN was abandoned, tying the two together.
Verizon has the capacity to guarantee an emergency lane over the Internet, with RSVP, MPLS or DiffServ. Options are something they're not short of. A lane on the Internet that could be switched to a fire lane only in a catastrophe. It has been done before, with long-distance (as in between continents) robotic surgery.
I don't know how much bandwidth you need, you're a volunteer fire
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I don't know how much bandwidth you need, you're a volunteer firefighter so may be able to guess. I don't see why you couldn't be given a panic button that cleared that space and guaranteed it in the event of a declared disaster.
The reason the firefighters are worried about net neutrality and not just guaranteed bandwidth is that The People need access to the information that the fire department is providing. We don't all watch television all the time any more, so we need internet access to keep up with disasters in progress. Unfortunately, Cal Fire is actually goddamned awful about making timely updates with the information that people need, but it's even worse when you can't get access to what they're releasing.
Re: Data caps are a net neutrality issue? (Score:3)
Verizon introduced caps for the firefighters at the same time as they stopped network neutrality. That is the basis for the lawsuit demanding the reintroduction of net neutrality.
They may not be related in fact, but Verizon linked them in law.
with unlimited data plans?? so the ones that moved (Score:2)
with unlimited data plans?? so the ones that moved to pay per GB will not be able to go back?
Missed opportunity.. (Score:2)
This was really a missed opportunity for Verizon. They should have made a lack of data cap for public safety workers a selling feature. How many more options would they pick up if they had done it that way in the first place.
Seriously.
Verizon fighting their own fires (Score:2)
3rd time is the charm? (Score:2, Insightful)
>"It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers[...]"
And for the third time (on Slashdot).... this has NOTHING to do with net neutrality. The data speed is not being altered based on where the data is going or coming from; it is completely neutral, based on a non-secret cap. Data caps are on nearly all "unlimited" data plans with all wireless carriers (and most wired carriers too). Just because it is a government agency that didn't read or perhaps understand their contract
Re:3rd time is the charm? (Score:4, Insightful)
or work with the FTC to change or clarify the meaning of "unlimited data" and force all the carriers to call it something else.
This. Unlimited* and similar statements to the effect of 'no limitations' shouldn't be allowed terminology, if there actually are limitations. Sure they don't want to advertise all the edge cases that are limited, especially when those edge cases are out of their control. However, something completely under their control (arbitrary data caps) shouldn't be an edge case they're allowed to gloss over with a disclaimer.
*Actually Limited
Re: 3rd time is the charm? (Score:2)
Everything is limited. My internet connection is limited to 50mbps. My home network is limited to gigabit speed. The speed of light is limited to 299 million meters per second. If you want no limits, find a different universe.
"Unlimited" in this context is used to differentiate them from plans which had a hard cap on how much data you could transfer, after which you would have to buy more. If the word "unlimited" is not acceptable to you, which word would you use to advertise that difference?
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The MVNO I get service through (Mint Mobile) has offers of XGB/mo. and then you're on 2G the rest of the month. They don't use 'unlimited' to describe this. Raising the cap from 2/5/10GB, up to ~25GB, doesn't make it any more 'unlimited', it's just a higher number. It's quantitatively different rather than qualitatively. I'd just have them say '25GB/mo. and then unlimited 2G' since what's unlimited is the 2G (and if they're hiding behind that fact, they should have to say '2G' whenever they say 'unlimited')
Re: 3rd time is the charm? (Score:2)
The relationship comes from the cap being imposed along with the elimination of net neutrality. Verizon treated them as the same. There had not been a cap, previously.
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>"Verizon treated them as the same. There had not been a cap, previously."
Ever since Verizon brought back "unlimited" plans they have been throttled/capped. It really is not related to net neutrality, it is just about them trying to prevent "abuse" (heavy users) and make more money. This is interesting: https://www.androidpolice.com/... [androidpolice.com]
Not sure how well Verizon's throttled service worked, but way before Verizon did it, Sprint was doing it and I was on Sprint's "unlimited" data. On Sprint, the cap was
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If they wanted to prevent abuse, weighted round robin and ECN take a few seconds to activate and guarantee heavy users can't take more than their fair share if others are trying to use it.
They didn't. They chose a system that required a lot of implementing and a lot of auditing, along with space to track things. This is potentially much more dangerous, there may well have been fatalities from throttling as medical implants are updated remotely. It's certainly less fair. But it does .take a whole bucketload
Marketing bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You really shouldn't get to advertise " Unlimited " plans, then ( via extra fine print on page 936 of the user agreement )
turn around and throttle the bandwidth into the ground so as to make the entire service completely useless. ( God forbid
you actually USE your " Unlimited " plan as unlimited. )
It's akin to being sold a Ferrari with all that horsepower available to it, but being forced to drive it like a Prius. :|
I also find it amusing that this is only an issue because it's Firefighters. ( Or any profession that the public is constantly :| )
reminded to refer to as " Heroic ". Don't get me started on that one.
Congress could give two shits about Verizon screwing over the general public every day with the very same policies, but if you do it to
$heroic_profession, ( or a Congress type ) all of a sudden it's a big fucking deal and everyone runs in little circles demanding answers.
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Words used in marketing should have to adhere to a reasonable interpretation of the word in a dictionary.
Unlimited:
adjective
not limited; unrestricted; unconfined: unlimited trade.
boundless; infinite; vast: the unlimited skies.
without any qualification or exception; unconditional.
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I also find it amusing that this is only an issue because it's Firefighters. ( Or any profession that the public is constantly :| )
reminded to refer to as " Heroic ". Don't get me started on that one.
Firefighters actually are heroic. They actually risk their lives in a real and imminent way even time they work, even when they do their jobs correctly. It's not like cops, where their jobs are mundane most of the time unless they do them incorrectly, and exacerbate the situation.
With that said, the only reason the politicians give a shit is that they're worried about being re-elected, and people will listen to firefighters when they tell them who to vote for.
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I switched ISP's the next day.
Yo Grark
Unlimited! (Score:2)
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If tomorrow, every American became a rational actor with perfect information about the market, so many market segments would simultaneously implode that the whole economy would collapse.
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Wow who would have thought (Score:2)
It's almost like some kind of invisible hand corrected a problem with zero government intervention!
Re: Wow who would have thought (Score:2)
Excuse me? (Score:1)
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Net neutrality wouldn't fix this (Score:2)
Why anyone would believe that net neutrality would fix this is beyond me. There is a finite amount of bandwidth available. That's a simple technological fact. So if, in fact, net neutrality is what proponents say it is and all content is treated equally, then nobody gets a fast lane including public safety users. So, in this case, public safety users have to share the limited bandwidth with everybody else especially thousands of people wanting to stream live video of the event. But if net neutrality gi
The New Thing (Score:2)
Re: three times (Score:3)
Ars Technica covered this some time back. Rival ISPs get their wires cut. ISPs have no-compete agreements with each other wherever possible and make it very expensive to compete in other circumstances. ISPs have gone bankrupt repairing mysteriously destroyed infrastructure in Comcast and Verizon territory.