A proposed California state law prohibiting the throttling of public safety agencies during emergencies has drawn opposition from a top lobbying group for the US mobile industry. The lobbying group, CTIA, has complained the bill as written is too vague, and should be limited to only apply to emergencies declared at the federal or state level, rather than including those declared by local governments, according to Arstechnica.
Speaking of the opposition, Terry Schanz, chief of staff for State Assemblyman Marc Levine, noted “CTIA did oppose the bill but committed to work with Assembly member Levine to address their concerns. We are confident that we will be able to reach an agreement between first responders and wireless data providers to ensure that first responders have every tool available to them necessary to keep the public safe during an emergency.”
The bill was proposed by Levine in response to Verizon’s throttling of an “unlimited” plan used by Santa Clara County’s firefighters, during the 2018 wildfires. Rather than following its own policy regarding data speed restrictions in emergency situations, Verizon at the time instead required the fire department to purchase a more expensive plan, according to the bill.
Says Levine of the bill, “The Democratic chair [Miguel Santiago] of the committee supports it. The Republican vice chair [Jay Obernolte] of the committee announced his support as well, and hopefully we’ll send this bill on its way and get the signature of the governor at the end of the year.”
President of the California Fire Chiefs Association Jeff Meston also offered his support for the bill, saying “California is a place where we have multiple disasters on a regular basis. We rely on our cell phones; we rely on Internet data to an extreme degree. When we go to an emergency incident, we need information about the incident action plan, photographs of what happens, mapping, who’s available, [and] where they’re located, and all these things now are done by cell phones.”
