![]() Verizon rejected the department's contention that the incident could be connected to the repeal of net neutrality rules. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward. ![]() In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations. Verizon released a statement conceding that they "made a mistake" in discussing the department's plan: "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," he wrote. The department's plan called for their data speeds to be slowed if they used more than 25 gigabytes a month. 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.īowden said the data throttling primarily affected one specific vehicle, OES 5262, which his department employed to "track, organize, and prioritize routing of resources from around the state and country to the sites where they are most needed" during the blaze. ![]() Bowden made his allegation in an addendum to an amicus brief filed by the complainants: ![]() The complaint came to light as part of a lawsuit filed by attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the County of Santa Clara, the Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and the California Public Utilities Commission, seeking to overturn the Federal Communication Commission's move to repeal net neutrality rules. As of late August 2018, the fire had consumed more than 400,000 acres of land, making it the largest wildfire in California history. Verizon Wireless admitted that they made a "mistake" after fire officials in nothern California revealed the company had stifled their data usage amid a historic wildfire in July 2018.Īccording to Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden, the data service provider failed to live up to their policy of lifting data caps in emergency situations when Bowden department asked for help while they battled the Mendocino Complex Fire. ![]()
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