In last year’s deadly Mendocino Complex fire, California firefighters suddenly found their data throttled by Verizon, threatening both their safety and their ability to combat the blaze, according to Gizmodo. Looking to prevent such an incident from occurring in Texas, state legislators have discussed introducing a bill that would prevent mobile providers from impairing or degrading mobile data in a declared disaster zone.
An available version of the bill looks to amend Texas state law to specify that a mobile Internet service provider “may not impair or degrade lawful mobile Internet service access in an area subject to a declared state of disaster.” For areas outside the disaster zones, providers will still be able to apply limits to data.
Discussing the original incident, Santa Clara County Fire’s Anthony Bowden wrote, “In light of our experience, County Fire believes it is likely that Verizon will continue to use the exigent nature of public safety emergencies and catastrophic events to coerce public agencies into higher-cost plans, ultimately paying significantly more for mission-critical service—even if that means risking harm to public safety during negotiations.”
As for Verizon, in a statement to Gizmodo, spokesperson Richard J. Young wrote, “What happened in Santa Clara was an isolated event. During the incident, we made a mistake in failing to follow our own practice to waive data restrictions when the issue first came up. Once we learned of our mistake, we took steps to ensure that, regardless of the plan they’re on, first responders will not encounter data restrictions during times of a declared emergency. We also introduced a new plan for first responders that does not include restrictions.”
Source:
https://gizmodo.com/texas-bill-would-make-it-illegal-for-verizon-and-any-ot-1832497712
