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A comment on Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data during wildfire. Parent comment

Re:Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data duri... by Spooky23 on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @06:06PM (#17814258)
Commercial/.Gov wireless is different. Verizon and AT&T both offer true unlimited or pooled plans and will even kick off other users to prioritize public safety. I’ve even seen cases where they will roll out temporary towers for emergencies — something is hinky about this story.

Although Ars Technica is beating the net neutrality drum, this has more to do with a fire department administrator going cheap on operational costs, or not using the California state contracts. They are using an aircard in a command vehicle, probably with PC, multiple mobile devices and video as well. Just pay the $75 vs $40/mo, and you don’t have this problem.

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Re:Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data duri... by StudentStuff on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @06:25PM (#17814398)
They were using the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) $37.99 unlimited plan for data devices, its a perfectly normal plan. Here in Seattle we use it for our busses WiFi Hotspots, on AT&T it is truly unlimited.
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Re:Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data duri... by Spooky23 on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @07:22PM (#17814778)
WSCA allows throttling if you’re a top 5% user locally. Not a problem in the middle of Seattle, but definitely something to plan for a command vehicle responding to wildfires and you have a high density of responders... particularly since the problem is so cheap to fix.

Also, another jurisdiction like police, state emergency management, Feds, etc may have a plan that allows them to deprioritize you at any time. If they were in FirstNet, a machine to machine plan, or a Verizon public safety plan, there would be no issue.

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