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The Santa Clara County fire chief says Verizon “throttled” wireless internet speeds while firefighters were battling the Mendocino Complex fires this summer, including his statement in a lawsuit filed Monday against the Federal Communications Commission.
The fire department and Santa Clara County are among over two dozen states and agencies behind the lawsuit.
The parties say the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules in December allowed Verizon, an internet service provider, to limit data speeds during a crucial fire fight.
Chief Anthony Bowden was appointed to the position earlier this month and the department began providing aid to fight the Mendocino Complex fires on June 27. The blaze is currently at 390,000 acres and 79 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.
When Bowden contacted Verizon about the emergency, he said the company instead offered an upgraded plan that was almost two times more expensive.
“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 … even if that means risking harm to public safety during negotiations,” he wrote in the court statement.
Verizon spokeswoman Heidi Flato said Wednesday that the fire department’s claim “has nothing to do with net neutrality or the current proceeding in court,” but was a “customer support mistake.”
“In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us,” Flato said in a statement, explaining Verizon’s policy of cooperating with government agencies during emergency situations.
“We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward,” she said.
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We were Verizon customers for years. Gave up on them a while ago. Their prices are too expensive for their performance and their customer service is really terrible.
Thanks to all the folks that voted for Trump.
without Trump we would stil be using the Internet without
this kind of interference.
America was greater with net neutrality. At least CA will soon be protected.
Verizon ADMITTED wrong doings in this matter and admitted they handled it incorrectly.
Next time we’ll be protected against their screw-ups.
Doing what Fat Nixon won’t do.
Didn’t work when Reagan did it, still doesn’t work. Deregulation creates a feeding frenzy for big business.
Verizon admits that they suck. Promises to try to suck a little less in the future. These are special data plans for first-responders and emergency-workers. Mercury-News report: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/24/verizon-lifts-data-caps-on-west-coast-public-safety-workers-after-it-slowed-firefighters-data/
Do they expect Verizon to upgrade them to unlimited data for free?
Do they understand that data caps were allowed under net neutrality regulations as long as they were applied without preference to particular network services?