Verizon Throttling Firefighters' Service Has 'Everything to Do With Net Neutrality,' Says Santa Clara
Santa Clara County, California, disagreed with Verizon that throttling service to firefighters doesn't relate to net neutrality. Verizon throttled the service during the Mendocino Complex Fire, the largest fire in state history, reported County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden in a…
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sworn statement that was an addendum to state and local governments’ net neutrality brief Monday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 1808210010). “In the midst of our response to the Mendocino Complex Fire, County Fire discovered the data connection for [Office of Emergency Services] 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.” When Bowden’s IT staff contacted Verizon, the carrier 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.” Verizon reportedly said it was a customer service mistake to throttle service to public safety -- and it doesn’t usually -- and the situation has nothing to do with net neutrality or the D.C. Circuit case. Santa Clara County counsel James Williams responded: “Verizon’s throttling has everything to do with net neutrality -- it shows that the ISPs will act in their economic interests, even at the expense of public safety. That is exactly what the Trump Administration’s repeal of Net Neutrality allows and encourages.”