Wireless Carriers Fight Ban On Throttling Firefighters During Emergencies (arstechnica.com) 173
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The U.S. mobile industry's top lobbying group is opposing a proposed California state law that would prohibit throttling of fire departments and other public safety agencies during emergencies. As reported yesterday by StateScoop, wireless industry lobby group CTIA last week wrote to lawmakers to oppose the bill as currently written. CTIA said the bill's prohibition on throttling is too vague and that it should apply only when the U.S. president or California governor declares emergencies and not when local governments declare emergencies.
The group's letter also suggested that the industry would sue the state if the bill is passed in its current form, saying the bill would result in "serious unintended consequences, including needless litigation." "[T]he bill's vague mandates, problematic emergency trigger requirement, and failure to include notification requirements could work to impede activities by first responders during disasters," CTIA wrote. The group said that it "must oppose AB 1699 unless it is amended to address the foregoing concerns." CTIA represents Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and other carriers. Despite CTIA's opposition, the bill proposed by State Assemblymember Marc Levine (D-Marin County) sailed through an Assembly committee yesterday. The Committee on Communications and Conveyance voted 12-0 to advance the bill, Levine's chief of staff, Terry Schanz, told Ars today. A committee analysis of the bill says that CTIA was the only organization to register opposition. The next stop for the bill is an April 30 hearing with the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. It is in response to Verizon throttling an "unlimited" data plan used by Santa Clara firefighters last year during the state's largest-ever wildfire.
The group's letter also suggested that the industry would sue the state if the bill is passed in its current form, saying the bill would result in "serious unintended consequences, including needless litigation." "[T]he bill's vague mandates, problematic emergency trigger requirement, and failure to include notification requirements could work to impede activities by first responders during disasters," CTIA wrote. The group said that it "must oppose AB 1699 unless it is amended to address the foregoing concerns." CTIA represents Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and other carriers. Despite CTIA's opposition, the bill proposed by State Assemblymember Marc Levine (D-Marin County) sailed through an Assembly committee yesterday. The Committee on Communications and Conveyance voted 12-0 to advance the bill, Levine's chief of staff, Terry Schanz, told Ars today. A committee analysis of the bill says that CTIA was the only organization to register opposition. The next stop for the bill is an April 30 hearing with the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. It is in response to Verizon throttling an "unlimited" data plan used by Santa Clara firefighters last year during the state's largest-ever wildfire.
This is just petty (Score:4, Interesting)
Why are they permitted to throttle emergency services at all?
In ye olden days, before fire services wetr socialized, you had to pay the firefighters or they'd just let your house burn to the ground. Maybe we should bring back that model but only for mobile company board members and lobbyists.
Re: This is just petty (Score:1)
Better yet, let's have the firemen burn houses of the undesirable.
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Paging Guy Montag...
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Why are they permitted to throttle emergency services at all?
Because the emergency services are buying consumer-grade communications.
If they want reliable QoS guaranteed communications, then they should pay for it.
When you go to a restaurant, you can order a hamburger or filet mignon. But when you order a hamburger, and pay the hamburger price, don't be surprised when you don't get filet mignon.
Re: This is just petty (Score:2, Insightful)
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The original case where firefighters were throttled had nothing to do with making phone calls, it had to do with slowed down internet connections. Specifically the data connection to their in-vehicle systems that “track, organize, and prioritize routing of resources"
Re: This is just petty (Score:2)
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It doesn't seem unreasonable to require the telcos to support the emergency services as part of their licence to offer such services and have exclusive use of part of the spectrum. They have an obligation to provide 911 services, after all.
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Emergency services are spending tax dollars collected out of the pockets of Joe Sixpack.
Getting that you pay for is one thing. Remembering whose pocket the money is actually coming out of is another.
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Probably would be more persuasive if you actually linked his statements.
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The emergency services bought plans with throttling. No big conspiracy there. If they required unlimited plans then they should have bought some.
Re: This is just petty (Score:2)
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The plan that they bought was advertised as unlimited
If you're the person responsible for signing up the fire department with a plan, you should read all the fine print, not just rely on the advertising slogans. You should even go a step further, and figure out exactly what the carrier will do in case of network problems, and make sure you get priority service. That's their fucking job.
Re: This is just petty (Score:1)
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That's not what "slogan" means
You can't just use "unlimited" because it sounds good and then throttle.
At least, you can't in any country with proper customer protections.
Re: This is just petty (Score:1)
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If they required unlimited plans then they should have bought some.
The original dispute was through an unlimited plan - see the summary:
it is in response to Verizon throttling an "unlimited" data plan used by Santa Clara firefighters last year during the state's largest-ever wildfire.
But all of Verizon's plans are labelled unlimited. They have gone as far as creating "tiers" of unlimitedness - all with limits.
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In ye olden days, before fire services wetr socialized, you had to pay the firefighters or they'd just let your house burn to the ground.
In wide swathes of rural America there are today subscription fee based firefighting services. No pay subscription ahead of time, no fight fire. No, you cannot pay after the fire has started.
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I'm just waiting for America to go full private and get rid of the government all together. Pay a subscription fee for a fire fighter. Pay a subscription fee for police. Pay a subscription fee for an ambulance (yeah I know you already do that one). At what point do you pay for your own road to be paved, and your own sewer to be maintained?
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It started with people just wanting to unbundle ESPN from Disney on their cable packages. Then Netflix disrupted everything. And now look where we are. Everything is its own subscription.
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Why are they permitted to throttle emergency services at all?
There not. There is no throttling on any plans provided to the government or private sector for emergency services.
Now to the next question: Why are emergency services permitted to buy consumer grade internet plans instead of the fit for purpose service on offer?
Sub question: Why does the government think it can legislate itself a better contractual outcome?
Re: This is just petty (Score:1)
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You know most volunteer fire departments are funded primarily from taxes right?
I know that cell phones for most volunteer fire departments are funded by the volunteer firefighters. That message came through loud and clear at the FirstNet stakeholder meetings I attended. One of the first questions, usually from a volunteer fire fighter, was "how much will this cost"?
FirstNet's promise was that it would be subsidized by any commercial use, and prices would be affordable. AT&T got the contract, and instead of "affordable", the price is 50% more than the current unlimited plan I alr
Why spending $75 billion / year building more? (Score:2)
The last time I checked, the carriers like to make money.
Am I wrong?
> There was always plenty of bandwidth to go around
So why, exactly, are they spending $75 billion each year building out more and more bandwidth, if there has always been plenty?
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There was always plenty of bandwidth to go around
So why, exactly, are they spending $75 billion each year building out more and more bandwidth, if there has always been plenty?
I imagine most of that goes toward infrastructure/capacity for new/expanding areas -- not really increasing bandwidth per se. That money covers more overall capacity over larger or more dense areas, not necessarily more speed or unit/localized capacity.
We're all still using GPRS at 35Kbps, gotcha (Score:2)
I see, you're saying once there is coverage in an area, it never gets faster? Correct?
We're all still using GPRS @ 35 Kbps and just don't know it.
> I imagine most of that goes toward
You do have quite an imagination.
They need to throttle! (Score:1)
It's standard legislative tripe (Score:1)
It's a nice feel good bill, but complying with it, as written, is damn near impossible, as the wireless carriers will be required to monitor every "official, board, or other governing body vested with authority to make such a declaration in any city, county, or city and county", as those organizations have no responsibility to inform the cell carriers that they've declared an emergency, and be able to identify every single account that might be a "public safety customer account", be that CalFire, bob the vo
Re: It's standard legislative tripe (Score:2)
Here's another really useful way to frame the issue, though: don't make them pay for bandwidth.
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Here's another really useful way to frame the issue, though: don't make them pay for bandwidth.
Joe Smith Volunteer Fireman signs up for Verizon service. How does Verizon know he's someone who might be going out on a fire call? Why should he get free bandwidth for the times he's doing his regular job and not fighting fires? Can everyone claim to be an emergency service worker and get free bandwidth? (I meet the criteria for FirstNet, so should I get free bandwidth?)
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be able to identify every single account that might be a "public safety customer account"
Step 1. Add a flag on the record to indicate "public safety account" - defaults to "no"
Step 2. Put a process in place to receive and process requests
Step 3. Make public announcement that such account holders are to submit a request
Step 4. Process such requests
Not that difficult.
add some language that unthrottling applies only if the carrier is notified of declared emergencies and that the notification must be renewed every N days.
"smog emergency" would be a BS excuse. may be propose to define acceptable eme
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Step 1. Add a flag on the record to indicate "public safety account" - defaults to "no" Step 2. Put a process in place to receive and process requests Step 3. Make public announcement that such account holders are to submit a request Step 4. Process such requests
It's called FirstNet. It already exists. It's a monopoly that was handed to AT&T, and they'll be happy to sell public safety users accounts at "special prices".
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How about "don't throttle unlimited plans by emergency services no matter if there's an emergency or not." That's easy to implement.
They might be right... (Score:1)
It wouldn't be the first time a government quickly passed a law in a reaction to something bad that - despite efforts to make things better - actually makes things worse because of unintended consequences.
Aaaand TFA doesn't really give enough details to tell.
There is a dedicated LTE band for public safety (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There is a dedicated LTE band for public safety (Score:5, Informative)
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(1) coverage is still limited (2) you have to have a band 14 phone.
You can still have FirstNet accounts in areas with no band 14 coverage. This is, indeed, the answer to the problem that CA is trying to legislate. It's a clear flag to the carrier (AT&T) that the user is a first responder, whether or not the device operates in the special band.
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There is already a dedicated LTE band (14) for just public safety - www.firstnet.com
There is no need for any legislation
The whole reason this came out is because a wireless carrier throttled a fire department for going over their limit because *that fire department* was too cheap to actually use the infrastructure made available to them and decided to get a cheaparse consumer connection instead.
This is either the government not having a clue, or trying to legislate a better contractual outcome for themselves. The latter never goes well.
Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:5, Insightful)
Emergency services are by far the most important purpose of telecommunications. Don't throttle them AT ALL. Give them the whole goddamn pipe. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Re:Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Because in order for the emergency services to work, the communications needs to work. Assuming finite bandwidth, which you have in this situation, you absolutely need traffic management and prioritization for the system to work. If it's just one big free-for-all, the network just goes up in smoke (if you'll pardon the pun) when everyone starts pounding on it.
The key is to make sure that as the network becomes overloaded that the bandwidth is divvied up fairly, and that the emergency comms make it through. I've run a satcom that wound up being used critically in a wildfire situation, and despite having a robust QoS implementation, fair queuing, and so forth, there were some users that I was forced to put into the doghouse and throttle, in order to ensure that other users were getting enough service to do their jobs. That's just the way it is.
Re: Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:2)
It isn't a free-for-all. There are very clear priority users in this situation. They get the whole goddamn pipe or something is fucked.
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yes, and when they have it all, which they did in my situation, you still need to police it.
Re: Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:5, Informative)
In a disaster situation, it's far more than just 911 phone bandwidth. They were distributing near real-time thermal imaging (taken from an orbiting aircraft equipped with thermal imaging equipment), regularly updated fire behaviour prediction models, and so forth. It was a significant quantities of data. In our case, it all had to be funnelled through a 3.3Mbps satellite link.
Dealing with these disasters has become incredibly data intensive. It's not just a couple of phone calls going back and forth.
Re: Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:1)
Re:Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:4, Interesting)
Emergency services are by far the most important purpose of telecommunications. Don't throttle them AT ALL. Give them the whole goddamn pipe. What the fuck is wrong with you?
They already do. Wireless carriers have special plans fit specifically for emergency services with all sorts of conditions you couldn't buy even if you bought the most expensive consumer connection.
The problem was then the emergency services thought, who needs a dedicated connection with this kind of SLA. Let's instead cheap out and get the 2GB home internet connection instead. That got throttled during the last fires. Fire department went and cried to mommy government about it.
I have a better idea: Fire the people involved. Legislate instead that the departments actually need to subscribe to the correct fucking plan in the first place. And then actually provide them the funds they need.
And fuck everyone for putting me in a position where I defend an ISP, but seriously the government is fucked bigtime, not the ISP.
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Of course if they'd done that you'd be complaining about wasting taxpayers' money. Herp herp $600 hammers derp derp and all the rest.
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Legislate instead that the departments actually need to subscribe to the correct fucking plan in the first place. And then actually provide them the funds they need.
And you can bet that if they know the government is paying, those plans are going to be crazy expensive. Way more than any other business would pay.
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And you can bet that if they know the government is paying, those plans are going to be crazy expensive.
More than "discount", yes. Crazy expensive? Well, is $60/mo for unlimited from AT&T (the only provider for FirstNet service) really "crazy"?
That's the price that two different sales people quoted me when I went to sign up. The only problem was, they were having a special deal at the time where the price should have been $40/month. So, it's not 'crazy expensive', just provided by a money-grubbing liar that pays salesmen on commission so they have an incentive to lie, too.
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Wireless carriers have special plans fit specifically for emergency services with all sorts of conditions you couldn't buy even if you bought the most expensive consumer connection.
And charging more is such a money grab, because 99.999% of the time there is no such emergency clogging a particular part of the network requiring any real prioritization. An SLA means nothing if it's the same towers as the consumer lines.
Re: Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:1)
Are you on crack? The hardware is irrelevant. Throttling happens to accounts.
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Accounts that are indistinguishable from your average Joe's cell phone account, which is the whole problem. There is nothing in the carrier's system that flags those accounts as being held by emergency personnel because the government (or fire department or whatever, I don't know who exactly) just got standard accounts.
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Well presumably someone pays the bill for the account...
If the bill for the account goes to "xxx fire department" and the billing address is a fire station it's not hard to work out.
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And if the account goes to City Treasury then what?
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On that we agree, but the guy working on checking invoices on the fourth floor of the IRS doesn't need unlimited data because of a forest fire so just giving everything to anyone working under the government in some way isn't the solution.
Re: Counterpoint: Fuck You (Score:1)
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There is nothing in the carrier's system that flags those accounts as being held by emergency personnel because the government (or fire department or whatever, I don't know who exactly) just got standard accounts.
Which is obviously a problem that the carrier can solve instead of fighting.
Wanting it doesn't make it happen (Score:2)
> I want my calls to be dropped, if firefighters need the lines to coordinate a large operation.
Unfortunately, wanting it doesn't make it happen.
Somebody would need to notify the carrier that a particular phone belongs to a firefighter, and perhaps even let them know that firefighter is involved in "a large operation". That's what the carriers are requesting - notification. Because they aren't psychic. They may very well be psycho, but they aren't psychic.
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They bill those accounts to somewhere. Somewhere like a government billing address. That probably says fire department on it.
I meet the definition of "first responder" and can be involved in disaster recovery. My bill doesn't say "fire department" on it, it has my personal name and address. How does my carrier know I am acting on a disaster? (Answer: it doesn't.)
Now, AT&T can, because AT&T got the contract to build FirstNet, and FirstNet accounts ARE flagged as first responders and get priority. But Verizon, despite it's claim to be the best network for first responder, doesn't have that.
Dueling Bozos! (Score:1)
Verizon vs. California government.
Which one is evil, and which one is incompetent? Is it even possible to tell?
"Needless litigation" (Score:2)
Do they mean the same kind of litigation they would bring if the bill is passed?
"Nice bill you have there.... It'd be a real shame if it were to pass or something..... real shame."
The issue: Who decides what is an emergency? (Score:2, Insightful)
It needs to be the state head of emergency services to have the final say.
Otherwise an emergency will be declared whenever McDonalds runs out of chicken mcnuggets.
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Who decides what is an emergency?
I vote that anything that requires police, paramedic or firefighter response is an emergency
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It needs to be the state head of emergency services to have the final say.
It seems fair to mention that San Bernardino county alone is about the size of West Virginia and has a population of two million. When decisions need to made quickly, there is something to be said for making them locally,
"not my problem" (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the complicated layer this adds on that the carrier has to keep track of now. Who counts as a firefighter, how does their info get added to some list? Which phones of theirs are allowed to qualify? When does the emergency start and end, who updates that info? How fast does it have to be updated? How does this get enforced?
Clearly the carriers want this to not be their problem. It would be much simpler just for the state to pay for unlimited bandwidth plans for those people it identifies.
But of course takes money, while it's much easier for legislators to require others to spend money to solve ambiguous problems.
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It would be much simpler just for the state to pay for unlimited bandwidth plans for those people it identifies.
There are already dedicated special purpose and heavily subsidized plans specifically for this. The only reason we are discussing this at all is because some fire departments are too cheap to pay for the infrastructure they need to do their work, and went and cried to the government about it.
Sirens (Score:3, Interesting)
Next up, let's throttle the streets. Emergency workers are no longer allowed to use their lights and blare their sirens at everyone to get out of the way in traffic. Emergency workers will have to sit in traffic like the rest of us, unless the governor or president declare a state of emergency. That building burning down over there? Pfffttt, no biggy, we got plenty more buildings, that's hardly an emergency!
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No one has ever knowingly throttled a fire department. Fire departments have dedicated fit for purpose plans offered by ISPs that are only available for emergency services, are heavily discounted and never throttled. They are required to offer these by existing regulations.
An ISP recently did throttle a bog standard consumer who paid next to nothing for a really crappy 25GB data allowance. Imagine their surprise when they got a call saying that consumer was a fire department who was too cheap to pay a bit e
Nope. I smell bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so the carriers problem is they don't know who is a firefighter, so they don't know whos unlimited plan they are allowed to throttle?
There are so many things wrong with this reasoning. Carriers know EXACTLY who every single person is at any damn time. Now more than ever before in history. This is DATA, and mobile devices we're talking about here, do you really think they somehow don't know who's who?
We don't know when an emergency is happening being the next problem? YOUR THE COMMUTATIONS COMPANY ffs. I call TOTAL bullshit. If it's happening in your coverage area, you NEED to know whats up, and if you don't, your tech support reps sure as fuck do. Suck less.
And finally, the whole thing is about the throttling bandwidth of unlimited accounts. Have we grown so accustomed to the corporate definition of "unlimited" that we don't even realize the crazy huge irony of this entire conversation?
Today, I am required to give my full name to open pretty much any communications line over pretty much anything, and every single piece of modern tech is actively sniffing out every little bit of data it can find. Occupation is on the fking application. You're now telling me that somehow..... you don't know who the emergency workers are?
Who have you been billing?
Hey wireless carriers, here's a tip. Don't piss off the firefighters. If you try to sue over this, not only will lose, but you get all the way smeared in the public eye, AND you also lose a pretty lucrative government contract. You will do exactly what you've been telling your customers to do for decades...... DEAL with it.
STORY TIME:
A million years ago I worked a tech support call center for "special clients" Each and every one of accounts had a full file for who the owner was. The "special clients" each got one of us dedicated technician that did nothing but service our 5 or so specials, and wrote documentation and support flowcharts and shit when not on a call. Now if fucking Boyband McfamousDickead can have all that special attention, why can't our emergency services get the same?
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Today, I am required to give my full name to open pretty much any communications line over pretty much anything, and every single piece of modern tech is actively sniffing out every little bit of data it can find. Occupation is on the fking application. You're now telling me that somehow..... you don't know who the emergency workers are?
Maybe the carriers could find out, but it would be much simpler for all emergency services to sign up for a different type of contract, without throttling. Less chance of mistake, greater flexibility, and much less work overall.
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Do they get to pay special prices too?
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For your
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OK, so the carriers problem is they don't know who is a firefighter
Yeah they do. All firefighters use dedicated plans offered only to emergency service departments. I mean they do ... right? It couldn't be that the fire department ... let's pick one out of thin air ... truck OES 5262 of the Santa Clara County Fire Department was found to have a cheap arse consumer grade 25GB data package because they didn't want to pay a few dollars extra a month for the dedicated fit for purpose plan provided to them would day?
Prohibit throttling of fire departments (Score:1)
Throttling: control of services on a consumer type network.
Fire department: a physical building with a consumer ISP network.
Emergencies: when the fire department is in use?
Should a city want a 24/7 data pipe of a set size to each and every fire department? Put out a request for that gov/business grade service.
Add in some backup networks.
What is a fire department doing on the consumer internet? Why not have a seperate "emergency" network of voice, data and GUI software that
well when your HQ is on fire we may just not be as (Score:2)
well when your HQ is on fire we may just not be as fast at putting out.
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Quintissential American problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Reading some of the comments on this story just makes me sad and embarrassed on behalf of the commentors.
So many people are seriously arguing in favor of wireless corporation profits over saving lives and property.
Seriously, what the ever loving, tap dancing Christ is WRONG with you people? Emergency services need coordinated, uninterrupted, communications to be effective! How hard is that to understand?
"Yeah well then the fire departments should pay for a better plan" Ok sure. With what budget? And you do realize that YOU are paying for that additional expense with YOUR taxes? But then in the next breath you piss and moan about how taxes are theft and you are being gouged by Teh Ebil Guvment!
I swear the $DEITY....
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Emergency services need coordinated, uninterrupted, communications to be effective!
And it's their own responsibility to sign up for the proper plan.
Ok sure. With what budget?
The real cost of unthrottled communication during emergency isn't very high. You just have to cut off regular consumers until bandwidth is available. But the budget question is not really valid, because by pushing all the cost to the carriers, the budget question doesn't disappear, it just becomes the carrier's problem. That is less fair than raising taxes.
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Well the carriers shouldn't be profiting from an emergency situation...
The infrastructure is already there, in an emergency it should give first priority to emergency services.
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So many people are seriously arguing in favor of wireless corporation profits over saving lives and property.
No. You don't know the background here.
Carriers already provide exactly what the fire departments need. They are regulated to. However in the last wildfires (we cover this on Slashdot) a fire department did get their service throttled. Turns out the department for cost reasons decided they didn't feel the need to pay for the right infrastructure and put their trucks on a cheap consumer 25GB plan rather than the plans provided for them.
Now they went and cried to mommy government. Mommy government whose preci
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So there is the error. There is a plan for emergency services, but it has nontrivial cost. So high, that there were noticeable savings in dropping that plan.
Better idea: legislate that emergency services get uncapped service but at the cost of the cheapest plan. In practice, their service usage will then be sponsored by everybody else. (Which is happens anyway, but now without going via taxes and public fund allocations. I.e. cut out some middlemen who can only mess up things.)
Are wireless carriers evil? (Score:2)
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There are tons of businesses that do work for emergency services, and they all get paid appropriately. Should an ER surgeon do her work for free because "people's lives are at stake" ?
Consider a car analogy (Score:2)
Firefighters use trucks, so let's use police cars as an example. Police are still "public safety agencies".
If a car company doesn't sell police cars, the police can't go up to them and demand they manufacture and sell some police cars. They can only buy the products that the company already sells. Unsurprisingly, this is true even if having the police cars would save lives. And it's certainly true if the police is demanding that they be sold police cars for the price of regular cars without the fancy pa
Consider a ROAD analogy (Score:2)
The people (government) built, maintains and owns the roads and land. They rightfully can demand special use of THEIR roads. It's a privilege to even be able to drive on the road. As for sales to a massive customer, they'll even bribe officials so they get the contract.
The airwaves belong to the people (government) and has been rationed off in a leasing type scheme allowing handful of vile corps to have tiny thiefdoms. They wouldn't have that business... or the telephones since those required access to publ
Carriers should be thankful (Score:4, Insightful)
Wireless carriers should be thankful they are granted access to a limited shared resource (a part of the radio frequency spectrum) which belongs to the people, not the carriers. Rather than petty lobbying and killing babies (which some times happens when emergency services cannot function effectively), carriers should be bending over backwards to show the people they are able to function as responsible custodians of this resource, in order for the people to allow them to keep their business.
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They are bending over backwards. No one has ever knowingly throttled a fire department. Fire departments have dedicated fit for purpose plans offered by ISPs that are only available for emergency services, are heavily discounted and never throttled. They are required to offer these by existing regulations.
An ISP recently did throttle a bog standard consumer who paid next to nothing for a really crappy 25GB data allowance. Imagine their surprise when they got a call saying that consumer was a fire department
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Wireless carriers should be thankful they are granted access to a limited shared resource (a part of the radio frequency spectrum) which belongs to the people, not the carriers.
This isn't wrong, but it's not exactly right, either. Yes, the spectrum is a shared resourced owned by everyone... but the carriers have paid for their right to use the parts they use. You can't auction something off and then claim that it doesn't belong to the buyer.
I see (Score:2)
We can't have Bubba complaining that he can't stream a nice video of the pretty forest fire, so let's throttle the people trying to put it out.
The bill requires an important correction. (Score:4, Informative)
Should read: "the police power reserved by the State of California under the United States Constitution."
The Constitution does not grant powers to the States. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".
No win for wireless carriers (Score:1)