There are many reasons why industries like our telecommunications need to have laws in place that regulate their behavior. One of the more obvious reasons is that during an emergency, the ability for various groups of responders and government agencies, as well as citizens, need the ability to communicate. As state’s attorneys general sue the U.S. government and Ajit Pai’s FCC rollback of net neutrality protections, evidence has been presented to show how an unregulated telecom market is not simply bad for consumers but is potentially deadly for public safety. In one of the more blatant public relations disasters in recent years, telecom giant Verizon admitted to having throttled the data of the Santa Clara Fire Department while they were in the middle of trying to contain one of the largest wildfires on record at the Mendocino Complex Fire.
Since then, Verizon has been doing damage control, releasing a bot army to tamper down criticism, while lobbying to get legislators to investigate website giants like Facebook instead of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Verizon and Comcast.* Former Verizon lawyer and current Republican FCC chairman Ajit Pai has stayed mum on his former bosses’ violations of the public trust.
Now, Verizon has released a new, subtle advertisement campaign, featuring fire officials, that talk about the importance of telecommunications during emergencies and how awesome Verizon is in regards to providing telecommunications. One of the title cards in the commercial even points out that “More first responders in America rely on Verizon than any other network.”
Good point, coming from the company that has been given billions in corporate welfare to build out the broadband infrastructure in our country for this very reason; and have subsequently been sued in order to force them to do some of the work they promised to do years ago.
Verizon’s argument has been that while they did throttle the data of the Santa Clara Fire Department during an emergency, forcing the fire department to get on customer service and argue, until finally purchasing a more expensive data plan, it was a big misunderstanding. Verizon, however, has shown time and again that they are mostly interested in profits, and any promises—even in writing—are unlikely to be kept.
*Both should be investigated.