Five Cities Fire Authority reacts to Verizon throttling speed during Mendocino Complex fire

In a fire as large as the Mendocino Complex Fire, firefighters set up mobile command posts to become a hub for communication and data collection.

“They are full of technology, basically bringing a dispatch center, a command post and office into a remote location and they need that data connectivity,” explained Chief Steve Lieberman of the Five Cities Fire Department.

Earlier this week however, the Santa Clara County Fire Department revealed their Verizon data was being slowed down as they try to fight the Mendocino Complex Fire.

“They reached a certain amount of usage and the speeds were throttled down to a very low rate. The mobile command post is all about command and control and coordination of resources, so to lose the capability to communicate is a big deal,” Chief Lieberman said.

Santa Clara County Fire isn’t the only ones that have faced this issue with Verizon – Five Cities Fire Authority has too.

“For us, these computers give the captains directions where they’re going, history of the address they’re going, fire pre-plans if they’re responding to a fire, especially in a commercial building there’s a lot of information that’s available to them – but you have to be able to retrieve it. So we’re Verizon customers [and] it works great on a day to day basis and there have been times when we’ve been throttled down too.”

Now they’re looking into possibly switching to a new network that’s being built just for first responders using AT&T towers.

“The government partnered with the private sector to really look at what it would take to build a public safety network – so not a network where we would share our cellular traffic with the consumer but just a dedicated law enforcement and fire network called First Net.”

With the First Net system, there would be no data caps at all. In order to keep their customers, Verizon announced Friday it would no longer place restrictions on data speeds for first responders on the West Coast.

That’s good news for people like Chief Lieberman, who is the first to hear complaints when things go wrong in his department.

“Verizon’s made a lot of gestures in the past few days and has accepted some responsibility and we always appreciate that but again – it’s up to us as well as our cellular carrier to really understand what our rate plan covers.”