Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data during Calif. wildfire
THIS is one example why we must have Net Neutrality. Telecom companies are about as honest as anyone you’d ever meet in high-security federal penitentiary.
Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data during Calif. wildfire
Fire dep't had to pay twice as much to lift throttling during wildfire response.Verizon Wireless' throttling of a fire department that uses its data services has been submitted as evidence in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal net neutrality rules.
"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."
Bowden's declaration was submitted in an addendum to a brief filed by 22 state attorneys general, the District of Columbia, Santa Clara County, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and the California Public Utilities Commission. The government agencies are seeking to overturn the recent repeal of net neutrality rules in a lawsuit they filed against the Federal Communications Commission in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
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The throttling recently affected "OES 5262," a fire department vehicle that is "deployed to large incidents as a command and control resource" and is used to "track, organize, and prioritize routing of resources from around the state and country to the sites where they are most needed," Bowden wrote.
"OES 5262 also coordinates all local government resources deployed to the Mendocino Complex Fire," an ongoing wildfire that is the largest in California's history, Bowden wrote.
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"Why, yes Verizon, your corporate headquarters do pay municipal taxes and that does of course include unlimited removal of sewage from your building. However, we've determined that you have exceeded your acceptable limit of sewage removal and we have therefore stopped all outflow from your building. We can, of course, clear the lines but it will cost you ten times your tax rate in order for us to do so, unless you choose to wait until the next tax year before flushing your toilets. Let us know, and be sure to open a window while you consider your options."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-depar...
This is obscene. Heads should roll for this. Greedy bastids can’t even play straight with firefighters trying to keep the whole state from going up in flames.
I posted an OP about how Ajit Pai LIED about the public’s response to changes to Net Neutrality.
Ajit Pai knew DDoS claim was false in January, says he couldn’t tell Congress
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/ajit-pai-knew-ddos-claim-was...
The taxpayer PAID for the development of the internet. We have to take it back.
Yes, Government Researchers Really Did Invent the Internet
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But Crovitz's story is based on a profound misunderstanding of not only history, but technology. Most egregiously, Crovitz seems to confuse the Internet—at heart, a set of protocols designed to allow far-flung computer networks to communicate with one another—with Ethernet, a protocol for connecting nearby computers into a local network. (Robert Metcalfe, a researcher at Xerox PARC who co-invented the Ethernet protocol, today tweeted tongue-in-cheek "Is it possible I invented the whole damn Internet?")
The most important part of what we now know of as the Internet is the TCP/IP protocol, which was invented by Vincent Cerf and Robert Kahn. Crovitz mentions TCP/IP, but only in passing, calling it (correctly) "the Internet's backbone." He fails to mention that Cerf and Kahn developed TCP/IP while working on a government grant.https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/yes-government-researc...
Comments
Accurate history of the internet is hard to come by...
instead of fawning hagiography of ripoff artists like Bill Gates.
The best book I've read is The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal, by M. Mitchell Waldrop.
The book is a biography of the most important person you never heard of, J.C.R. Lickleider. Lickleider was the first head of ARPA. He was a cognitive psychologist in the black days when B.F. Skinner and the false religion of behaviorism ruled over psychology. In the era of big mainframe dinosaurs, he had a special interest in distributed computing and personal interaction - via teletype in those days.
He was the first head of ARPA, and he used that post to start funding the infrastructure necessary to create the internet. As your article says, he funded Metcalfe to write TCP/IP to connect computers over telephone lines. He encouraged what later turned into WYSIWYG.
Lickleider's story itself is simply amazing. He was the most humanist person imaginable to be made head of ARPA in the deepest days of the Cold War. The fact that the book completely refutes the BIG LIE that private companies invented the internet is simply a side benefit.
The Road Ahead
Remember that one? I was working for Gates’ ghostwriter at the time (a high school buddy of his with a Pulitzer, who fancied himself a tech mogul) While he was a nice man, he was a writer not a technologist, so he faithfully cleaned up Bill’s clueless drivel that missed most of the internet. Not to mention what this lack of vision did to Microsoft as a company.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Concentration of power
is always bad. I was thinking about fakebook this morning and how no one ever seems to understand that when you make a big pile of stuff, it becomes a target. This is why I keep my data on my own machines with my own backups (Apple’s Time Machine comes with the OS). When credit cards cost about a buck in bulk I’m too small a target for serious hackers.
After all, as Willie Sutton famously remarked when asked why he robbed banks: “Because that’s where the money is.”
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I am in a fight with Hughesnet over a related issue.
Upnorth all we can get is satellite internet. We have Hughesnet. Hughesnet cost me $16/mo when it is turned off for the winter (on vacation) and $69/mo for 10GB a month. When I run out of data, my "unlimited service" is so slow the internet connection often times out making the whole thing useless.
Our house up north is a vacation home, which means we are there and we aren't. We turn the internet on in May when we open up, and we turn the internet off (put it on vacation) the end of October when we close it up for the winter. When we are there, we are heavy users. When we aren't there, our data usage is nada, zip. At the end of the month, HughesNet confiscates my unused data even though I bought and paid for it. If we run out, Hughesnet is happy to sell me more data at $9.00 for 3 GB, but they will not give me access to the data they stole from me.
I started a fight with them on Facebook and Twitter. I think this practice is stealing from the consumers. They feed me bull shit policy that this is how they allocate bandwidth to make it fair for all users, but apparently money Trumps policy. If you want your own data back, it is unfair to others. If you want to pay them for more data, okey dokey.
They said, "when your milk reaches its expiration date, you don't get a refund on what's left in the carton". I said, true but the grocery store doesn't show up on the expiration date and remove my milk from my fridge.
What do I hope to get? I don't know. Ideally, change their policy to allow unused data to roll forward. Fall back victory, free data tokens that do roll forward. What I am is pissed at AAA over a homeowners insurance claim, and I'm kicking HughesNet to make me feel better.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
We just switched from them
HughesNet is awful, for the reasons you stated. I've heard nothing but bad things about them. We also had the 10GB plan (My mom bought it two years ago; it was ok for her since she doesn't use the internet much and uses her phone for most of her internet stuff.) But my husband and I were going through the 10GB in about two weeks, then as you said it was throttled down to uselessness. (Apparently they have free normal speeds between the hours of 2-6am or something??)
We cancelled them and decided to try internet through Verizon, with their Jetpack wifi hotspot thingy. The sales girl was telling us we could get 75GB with it before any throttling 'might' happen. This was last week. About six days later we got a notification saying we had used our 15GB of mobile wifi hotspot (billing cycle resets on the 21st.) and got throttled. So we went back in to the Verizon store in town and they said it was because we changed plans right before the end of the billing cycle and the 'unlimited' plan would start at the new billing cycle, and the throttling should only maybe happen if we are in a high-density place like a big city or something and they didn't know where the 75GB was coming from. So we'll see what happens. My husband thinks he can hook up the Jetpack to a router and avoid even using the mobile hotspot function, but we'll see. They didn't tell us any of this when we bought the thing either. I don't think 'unlimited' means what they think it means, in any case. I wish there were fair advertising laws because it's such a load of bullshit to advertise these plans as unlimited when clearly they aren't.
Unfortunately we're also in the middle of nowhere and these are our only options for internet service. Another company we tried came out and couldn't see any of their nearest towers from our house, so that one was out. We used to have DSL way back when, but they don't even offer that here anymore. Shit and damn.
This shit is bananas.
I was on Hughesnet years ago.
I encountered the same problems. I could only stand them for a couple of years. I understand your dilemma. Have you thought of T-Mobile? No internet necessary.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
No, but I will check them out.
I know I cant get cell from there where we are. I also have a contract with HughesNet. I pay $69/mo. from May - October when the home is open for season. When we close the house up November - April, HughesNet let's me put the service on vacation and I pay $16.00/mo for the privilege of not paying $69.
All the new cars come with internet and you can hook your phone to them and use them as a hotspot. Then I could also cancel Direct TB and save another $100. Maybe I should buy a car.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon