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A Black Eye for Verizon

AT&T has to love this negative coverage for Verizon to reference their support of their First Responder customers.

Oops! See Verizon lifts data restrictions on first responders after criticism for slowing service to firefighters.

This became a national level story when it occurred and it could not have come at a worse time for Verizon. AT&T got the FirstNet contract that is aimed directly at providing priority service to first responders — while Verizon did not bid.

In turn, Verizon is out and about with their sales reps telling their existing first responder contacts that they can deliver everything that AT&T and FirstNet can deliver (they won't mention Band 14). 

I can tell you this, both of those companies will be overloading their services in the upcoming disaster zone that Hurricane Florence will create. They will be battling it out to either retain their customer base or win new customers when the other company falters in delivering services. 

I expect that both company customer reps will be in EOCs filling coffee cups and passing around doughnuts and free pizza!  Anyone need a free phone?

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.