In the spring of 2017, Republicans Ajit Pai and Sen. Ron Johnson took a promotional tour in the hopes of selling the idea of doing away with net neutrality protections. Pai, who is Trump’s pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission, was going to do it anyway, but the hope was to save Republican representatives who would be adversely affected by the wildly unpopular decision some grief. It also allowed aging senators—who clearly had little to no understanding of what or how the internet works—a chance to have their hand held by a professional telecom lackey like Pai.
At that time, the best lie that Republicans could come up with for taking away consumer protections from the notoriously consumer-unfriendly telecom industr, was that it would somehow ensure that emergency services were prioritized over pornography. Literally: that was the bogus argument. In fact, the opposite was true. Without net neutrality, internet service providers (ISPs) will throttle services regardless of whether or not they give out “unlimited data” plans.
Throttling is the term used when an ISP intentionally slows down your service to stop the amount of data you are able to use. Throttling can and does disable many internet activities, and there is some explosive evidence in a brief filed by 22 state attorneys general appealing the Republican rollback of net neutrality protections. A declaration made by Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden says that Verizon throttled his Fire Department’s “unlimited” data service at the worst possible time—during a wildfire emergency.
"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."
According to Bowden, the most most recent aspect of the Fire Department’s job affected by Verizon’s greedy throttling was OES 5262—a department vehicle that handles tracking and routing of response to emergency fire situations.
"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."
And just to make sure you understand how unconscionably greedy telecoms will be when not BY LAW told they cannot be, there’s this.
"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.
So Bowden and the Santa Clara Fire Department got Verizon to stop throttling them. It just took a few shekels.
To lift the throttling, Verizon told the fire department to upgrade from a $37.99 plan to one that costs $99.99 for the first 20GB and $8 per gigabyte thereafter.
"While Verizon ultimately did lift the throttling, it was only after County Fire subscribed to a new, more expensive plan," Bowden wrote.
There was a reason that the Republican lie about net neutrality protections hurting emergency services didn’t gain much traction: because it was dumb and made zero sense to anyone with even a passing understanding of what internet “fast lanes” would consist of if the telecom industry was completely unregulated. One of the many issues with the telecom industry is their disregard for the services they claim to provide. Creating artificial “data caps” led to the throttling of services.
Arstechnica received a response from Verizon that said while they agreed they had made a mistake, it was a “customer support mistake,” and this issue “has nothing to do with net neutrality.”
Santa Clara County disputed Verizon's characterization of the problem in a press release last night. "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," County Counsel James Williams said on behalf of the county and fire department. "That is exactly what the Trump Administration's repeal of net neutrality allows and encourages."
Earlier this year, circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown ruled against AT&T, saying the telecom could be subject to the FTC over AT&T’s throttling of their “unlimited” plans. Its not just Verizon. It’s not just Comcast. It’s all of them. It’s greed.
