Verizon Throttles Fire Department Data

[Thaldor]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Correction, $99.99 for 20GB of data plus $8 per GB over that

From the article:

Quote

A Verizon government accounts manager named Silas Buss responded, saying that the fire department would have to move from a $37.99 plan to a $39.99 plan "to get the data speeds restored on this device." Later, Buss suggested that the department switch to a plan that cost at least $99.99 a month.

 They had $37,99 /month plan and needed to upgrade to the $99,99 /month plan.

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, Thaldor said:

From the article:

 They had $37,99 /month plan and needed to upgrade to the $99,99 /month plan.

Keep reading down:

 

 

Quote

Buss responded that afternoon, suggesting a plan that costs $99.99 for the first 20GB and $8 per gigabyte thereafter. "To get the plan changed immediately, I would suggest calling in the plan change to our customer service team," Buss wrote.

That was the last email submitted in the court exhibit.

Santa Clara apparently switched to the $99.99 plan, more than doubling its bill. "While Verizon ultimately did lift the throttling, it was only after County Fire subscribed to a new, more expensive plan," Bowden wrote in his declaration.

 

[highwolf_x]

5 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the Carr fire considered arson?

I know there have been a few though recently and I don't think the department in question was battling that fire.

The fire they're talking about specifically (Mendocino Complex) is currently being investigated for its cause (https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6073/) but it has already burned through >800k acres of land.

10 minutes ago, Dionyz said:

Most people don't know that fires are actually good for the environment.... Look it up.

Sure, fires are good for the environment in controlled burns, in addition to actually lessening the chance of fire, but are dangerous for people when they're not deliberately set to clear brush.

[Razor Blade]

I just don't see it being about profit here... I see it as likely computer algorithms doing their job and no way for Verizon to single out firefighters using what could very well be a hotspot with a consumer plan.

[AnonymousGuy]

So no cell provider offers true "unlimited".  TMobile I think is 50 GB or so before they throttle you back to 3G speeds or something, so effectively you do have a "time based limit" where even if you max your connection 24x7x30days you will only be able to reach a certain amount of traffic.

 

Also, what the hell are these firefighters doing that they're exceeding 20GB of data?  I watch youtube all day long on my phone and only hit 12-15GB in a month.  The reason the limit is set to 20 or 50GB depending on the carrier is because .01% of their users would ever exceed that, so it's effectively an anti-abuse mechanism.

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, AnonymousGuy said:

So no cell provider offers true "unlimited".  TMobile I think is 50 GB or so before they throttle you back to 3G speeds or something, so effectively you do have a "time based limit" where even if you max your connection 24x7x30days you will only be able to reach a certain amount of traffic.

 

Also, what the hell are these firefighters doing that they're exceeding 20GB of data?  I watch youtube all day long on my phone and only hit 12-15GB in a month.

Command and control center vehicles use more data than a few YouTube videos. This isn't individual members of the department but their control center for emergencies being throttled.

[PocketNerd]

Even more proof that Corporations are not our friends.

[AnonymousGuy]

Just now, Lurick said:

Command and control center vehicles use more data than a few YouTube videos. This isn't individual members but their control center for emergencies being throttled.

So why didn't they get a SLA with Verizon then to ensure that their needs are actually met?  It sounds like they just cheaped out buying a consumer plan and then are playing victim when in reality they abused the fuck out of it.

[Dionyz]

2 minutes ago, highwolf_x said:

The fire they're talking about specifically (Mendocino Complex) is currently being investigated for its cause (https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6073/) but it has already burned through >800k acres of land.

Sure, fires are good for the environment in controlled burns, in addition to actually lessening the chance of fire, but are dangerous for people when they're not deliberately set to clear brush.

But who's fault is it when they live in the middle of nowhere? The government? The person? Anyone buying a house should know that when it's summer there is a bigger chance of your house catching on fire if you live near large fields of dead grass... Same goes for people living in mountains they know the risk that there are snakes, bears, and poisonest plants. 

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

So why didn't they get a SLA with Verizon then to ensure that their needs are actually met?  It sounds like they just cheaped out buying a consumer plan and then are playing victim when in reality they abused the fuck out of it.

Because they thought they had the proper business plan, Verizon and their IT department said it was sorted back in December. If they weren't on a business plan, should that not have been communicated to the department back then?
 

Quote

 

Verizon is currently throttling OES 5262 so severely that it's hampering operations for the assigned crew. This is not the first time we have had this issue. In December of 2017 while deployed to the Prado Mobilization Center supporting a series of large wildfires, we had the same device with the same SIM card also throttled. I was able to work through [Fire Department IT executive] Eric Prosser at the time to have service to the device restored, and Eric communicated that Verizon had properly re-categorized the device as truly "unlimited".

 

 

[highwolf_x]

1 minute ago, Dionyz said:

But who's fault is it when they live in the middle of nowhere? The government? The person? Anyone buying a house should know that when it's summer there is a bigger chance of your house catching on fire if you live near large fields of dead grass... Same goes for people living in mountains they know the risk that there are snakes, bears, and poisonest plants. 

So..... everyone should live in cities? Including farmers?

[Razor Blade]

Just now, Lurick said:

Because they thought they had the proper business plan, Verizon and their IT department said it was sorted back in December.
 

 

Unless business plans work differently, Verizon doesn't categorize devices to anything. They don't care what devices you have only what plan you're on. You can get more devices on a plan all you need to do is get the sim card and add it to your plan. Sounds like the fault lies with Eric Prosser not Verizon?

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, Razor Blade said:

Unless business plans work differently, Verizon doesn't categorize devices to anything. They don't care what devices you have only what plan you're on. You can get more devices on a plan all you need to do is get the sim card and add it to your plan. Sounds like the fault lies with Eric Prosser not Verizon?

They actually do categorize devices and even offer QoS on business plans as I'm working with it right now for customer testing and provide a dedicated amount of bandwidth.

[Razor Blade]

Just now, Lurick said:

They actually do categorize devices and even offer QoS on business plans as I'm working with it right now for customer testing and provide a dedicated amount of bandwidth.

Good info

 

the only question I would have would be did the fire department actually have a business plan...

[Dionyz]

Just now, highwolf_x said:

So..... everyone should live in cities? Including farmers?

They should use caution. With the land a farmer has they should section it off from all of the other dead brush or pay to get a controlled fire around his property. 

 

They can get insurance as well, but the point is trying to minimize risk. Living out in the middle of no where increases the risk of forest fires.That is known, so reduce this risk by using measures to prevent the fire.

[highwolf_x]

3 minutes ago, Dionyz said:

They should use caution. With the land a farmer has they should section it off from all of the other dead brush or pay to get a controlled fire around his property. 

 

They can get insurance as well, but the point is trying to minimize risk. Living out in the middle of no where increases the risk of forest fires.That is known, so reduce this risk by using measures to prevent the fire.

Unfortunately, controlled fires aren't approved that easily due to needing to go through federal and state approval processes

https://www.kqed.org/science/1927354/controlled-burns-can-help-solve-californias-fire-problem-so-why-arent-there-more-of-them

[highwolf_x]

16 minutes ago, Dionyz said:

But who's fault is it when they live in the middle of nowhere? The government? The person? Anyone buying a house should know that when it's summer there is a bigger chance of your house catching on fire if you live near large fields of dead grass... Same goes for people living in mountains they know the risk that there are snakes, bears, and poisonest plants. 

Oh, in addition, there have been many incidents of fires near larger cities, such as the Holy Fire, which is burning quite close to Irvine right now. (https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6106/)

[Thaldor]

8 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Keep reading down:

 

 

 

Missed that one, thanks, I stand corrected.... WHAT?!?

 

If something I could understand data plans being cheaper in the States than in Finland, just because more payers per area. But to get to those kinds of prices per month data plans I need to get 600Mbit/s unlimited (~50€/month) and bundle something like a iPhone X with it (~30€/month for 3 years) and those are consumer prices. Like, those prices don't make any sense, even less when comparing they are talking about 50Mbit/s speeds. (And for clarification I often share my phones network to my PC to (in paper) double my network speed (100Mbit/s from the landline and 100Mbit/s from the 4G) so getting a lot of data traffic to my phone bill isn't that exceptional)

[Dionyz]

1 minute ago, highwolf_x said:

Oh, in addition, there have been many incidents of fires near larger cities, such as the Holy Fire, which is burning quite close to Irvine right now. (https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6106/)

sure those are the outskirts of major cities, but we all know there wouldn't be a wild fire in the middle of Los Angles.  

[highwolf_x]

10 minutes ago, Dionyz said:

sure those are the outskirts of major cities, but we all know there wouldn't be a wild fire in the middle of Los Angles.  

I mean, no one lives in the MIDDLE of LA (this is an exaggeration, but you know what I mean), most of the population of the LA metro area is in the area around LA itself. There were several fires pretty close. For example, in 2008, there was a fire near Anaheim that started to burn down houses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeway_Complex_Fire (the picture attached is just a rough estimate of where it was)

 

[highwolf_x]

If you want closer to LA, there was the Beverly Hills fire last month-ish (https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/blazing-brush-fire-threatens-homes-in-beverly-hills-los-angeles/70005201) (sorry, can't find the government link for it rn).

[Dionyz]

4 minutes ago, highwolf_x said:

I mean, no one lives in the MIDDLE of LA (this is an exaggeration, but you know what I mean), most of the population of the LA metro area is in the area around LA itself. There were several fires pretty close. For example, in 2008, there was a fire near Anaheim that started to burn down houses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeway_Complex_Fire (the picture attached is just a rough estimate of where it was)

 

I agree. But that's the risk living in the outskirts of any city. 

 

Google highlights this area as green, but it's not like that all seasons. 

[highwolf_x]

59 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the Carr fire considered arson?

I know there have been a few though recently and I don't think the department in question was battling that fire.

Oh, I was browsing the fires, but the Carr fire was a mechanical failure of a vehicle it looks like: (http://www.fire.ca.gov/current_incidents/incidentdetails/Index/2164)

[highwolf_x]

5 minutes ago, Dionyz said:

I agree. But that's the risk living in the outskirts of any city. 

 

Google highlights this area as green, but it's not like that all seasons. 

It would be more green if the drought wasn't this bad.

[BuckGup]

I still don't understand. The fastest LTE speeds I have ever gotten were 36Mb/s, I still don't have coverage in a lot of places, and data doesn't cost anything. Sure putting up a tower is expensive and isn't free but it's minuscule compared to how much they charge and how much data "costs"