Verizon is offering an olive branch after royally fumbling how it dealt with emergency responders in California.
The nation’s largest wireless carrier said it’s lifted all speed caps for first responders on the West Coast battling wildfires, as well as for emergency workers in Hawaii, who are dealing with Hurricane Lane. It added that if another disaster arises, it’ll lift restrictions on public safety customers.
The company said it also plans to introduce a new plan next week for first responders with unlimited data, no mobile caps and priority access.
The actions come after Verizon drew widespread criticism for throttling first responders who were battling the Mendocino Complex fire in California. The revelations emerged this week out of a court filing, and immediately raised concerns that this was a potential violation of net neutrality and further illustration of a carrier abusing its power.
Verizon said the move to throttle the firefighters was the result of an employee mistake. The company added that it has a plan in place to remove the restrictions in emergency situations, but that customer support failed to act on that plan.
“In supporting first responders in the Mendocino fire, we didn’t live up to our own promise of service and performance excellence when our process failed some first responders on the line, battling a massive California wildfire,” Mike Maiorana, senior vice president of public sector for Verizon, said in a statement. “For that, we are truly sorry. And we’re making every effort to ensure that it never happens again.”
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