In the spring of 2017, Republicans Ajit Pai and Sen. Ron Johnson took a promotional tour in the hopes of selling the idea of doing away with net neutrality protections. Pai, who is Trump’s pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission, was going to do it anyway, but the hope was to save Republican representatives who would be adversely affected by the wildly unpopular decision some grief. It also allowed aging senators—who clearly had little to no understanding of what or how the internet works—a chance to have their hand held by a professional telecom lackey like Pai.
At that time, the best lie that Republicans could come up with for taking away consumer protections from the notoriously consumer-unfriendly telecom industr, was that it would somehow ensure that emergency services were prioritized over pornography. Literally: that was the bogus argument. In fact, the opposite was true. Without net neutrality, internet service providers (ISPs) will throttle services regardless of whether or not they give out “unlimited data” plans.
Throttling is the term used when an ISP intentionally slows down your service to stop the amount of data you are able to use. Throttling can and does disable many internet activities, and there is some explosive evidence in a brief filed by 22 state attorneys general appealing the Republican rollback of net neutrality protections. A declaration made by Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden says that Verizon throttled his Fire Department’s “unlimited” data service at the worst possible time—during a wildfire emergency.
"County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP, Verizon," Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration. "This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services."
According to Bowden, the most most recent aspect of the Fire Department’s job affected by Verizon’s greedy throttling was OES 5262—a department vehicle that handles tracking and routing of response to emergency fire situations.