GOOD SIGNAL

Verizon Lifts Speed Caps for First Responders in California and Hawaii

This comes after the company was accused of slowing down data speeds for first responders fighting the Mendocino complex fire.

Verizon said they would no longer slow down internet access to emergency responders battling natural disasters on Friday after the company was accused of “limiting data speed” for firefighters battling California's biggest wildfires on record. “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,” Mike Maiorana, Verizon's senior vice president of public sector, said in a Friday statement. The company also announced that the company would be lifting “all speed restrictions for first responders on the West Coast and Hawaii,” who are respectively dealing with multiple wildfires in Northern California and Hurricane Lane on the islands. The company would not say if they would change data plans for civilian customers caught in disaster zones. In the past, they have offered “free calls and texts” for customers in disaster areas. California prosectors recently submitted evidence to court accusing the company of slowing down speeds for first responders in the Mendocino Complex fire to “1/200th of what they were before,” rendering mobile devices to have “no meaningful functionality.”