FIERY HOT WATER. When it <a href="https://futurism.com/0-breaking-fcc-killed-net-neutrality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">repealed net neutrality</a>, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made more than a few enemies. And now, it can add another one to the list: the Santa Clara County Fire Department (SCCFD).
Back when it was in place, net neutrality prohibited internet service providers (ISPs) from treating some content on the internet differently from other content — for example, slowing down (&#8220;throttling&#8221;) users&#8217; access to certain websites.
Since the vote to repeal in December 2017, several government agencies have come together to <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/fcc-must-defend-net-neutrality-repeal-in-court-against-dozens-of-litigants/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">file a lawsuit</a> against the FCC. On Monday, the SCCFD contributed an <a href="https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fire-department-net-neutrality.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">addendum</a> to the lawsuit <a href="https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/attorneys-general-net-neutrality.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brief</a>.
A MASSIVE SLOWDOWN. In the addendum, Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden alleges that, even though the organization paid its ISP, Verizon, for &#8220;unlimited&#8221; data, the department saw its transfer speeds reduced to 1/200th their previous rate after it used more than 25GB of data in a month.
&#8220;This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services,&#8221; Bowden wrote. &#8220;Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire&#8217;s ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services.&#8221;
VERIZON&#8217;S VIEWPOINT. Verizon says that the issue was simply a customer service mixup. The company told ArsTechnica:
<blockquote>Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations. We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake.</blockquote>
In the statement, Verizon also told ArsTechnica that the situation in Santa Clara &#8220;has nothing to do with net neutrality or the current proceeding in court.&#8221;
But they&#8217;re wrong.
LACK OF OVERSIGHT. Verizon may not have violated the net neutrality rule against throttling (after all, it slowed down all of the SCCFD&#8217;s activity, not just activity geared toward one site), but the repeal might still play a role in this situation.
If the regulations were still in place, the SCCFD could have used the net neutrality system to complain directly to the FCC about Verizon&#8217;s throttling, which (perhaps coincidentally) only began a few weeks after the <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/ajit-pai-says-youre-going-to-love-the-death-of-net-neutrality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enactment of the repeal</a>. The repeal also limited customers&#8217; ability to <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/how-title-ii-goes-beyond-net-neutrality-to-protect-internet-users-from-isps/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sue ISPs</a> for unfair behavior.
Perhaps Verizon is right. Maybe the situation in Santa Clara only happened because a customer service rep didn&#8217;t do their job correctly. Or maybe it&#8217;s an example of how big ISPs act when they know it&#8217;s harder for anyone to hold them accountable for their actions.
READ MORE: <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Verizon Throttled Fire Department’s “Unlimited” Data During Calif. Wildfire</a> [ArsTechnica]
More on net neutrality: <a href="https://futurism.com/0-breaking-fcc-killed-net-neutrality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The FCC Just Killed Net Neutrality</a>

Customers don't have many ways to complain about their ISPs, even if they're saving lives.

Verizon is wrong. Throttling emergency responders’ data is definitely about net neutrality.

Future Society

The Santa Clara County Fire Department claims Verizon's throttling of its data impeded its ability to provide essential emergency services.

Verizon Is Wrong. Throttling Emergency Responders’ Data Is Definitely About Net Neutrality.

One fire department's data was slowed to 1/200th of its previous speed.

When the 911 emergency number was set up in 1968, there was no way to know how <a href="https://futurism.com/a-smart-home-device-successfully-reported-an-in-progress-crime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cellphones would change the way</a> people use the service. Today, it&#8217;s still difficult for operators to pinpoint the exact location of callers to send out help – but Google could change all that.
The search giant has been testing out a way to use the technology that identifies the user&#8217;s location in Google Maps to help out the emergency services. As reported by the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-tests-system-to-help-locate-911-callers-1518712754" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wall Street Journal</a>, a sample of 911 calls made using Android phones over the course of December 2017 and January 2018 saw geolocation data sent directly to the operator.
Currently, carriers can detect the location of a device by triangulating their distance from several <a href="https://futurism.com/google-project-loon-puerto-rico/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cell phone towers</a>, but this isn&#8217;t particularly accurate.  The study found that Google&#8217;s data gave an average location estimate radius of 121 feet, whereas carrier data averaged out at 522 feet.
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/70cDSUI4XKE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
At present, it falls to the operator to find out the exact location emergency responders need to be sent to from the caller. Given that they might be flustered, or potentially in a place they&#8217;re not familiar with, this can be a difficult prospect.
In this kind of situation, a slight improvement on the response time can be life-saving. Research published by the <a href="https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60001010065.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Federal Communications Commission</a> suggests that as many as 10,000 lives could be saved annually if emergency response times were improved by just one minute.
Google has had the technology to provide this service for some time – it was rolled out in the U.K. and Estonia in July 2016, according to a report from <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/07/google-android-emergency-location-service-999/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ars Technica</a>. Many feel uncomfortable with the idea of allowing their smartphone to <a href="https://futurism.com/google-admitted-tracking-location-when-settings-disabled/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">track their location</a>, but in emergency circumstances, it&#8217;s easy to see the benefits.

The company has had the technology to provide this service for some time.

911 wasn't set up with cell phones in mind. Google could change that.

Hard Science

Although controversial, Google location services can help save lives. Ambulances may use them to find the caller and identify the best way to get there.

911 Wasn't Set Up With Cell Phones In Mind. Google Could Change that.

Improving emergency response by just one minute could save as many as 10,000 lives every year.

911 Wasn’t Set Up With Cell Phones In Mind. Google Could Change that.

Infectious diseases have ravaged continents, treatment-resistant superbugs are on the rise, and social stigma inhibits treatment of crippling psychiatric disorders. At times, the state of global health may seem hopeless and concerning. But in fact, a number of advances, from drug development to disease tracking, are helping <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/14/living-longer-living-better-aging/">people live longer</a> at a scale that was previously unimaginable.
In the past decade, one technology, in particular, has had an outsized effect on global health: the cell phone. By reinventing the way we communicate with each other, even the simplest cell phone has enabled epidemiologists to track disease outbreaks with greater precision than before. Understanding how a disease spreads and where it spreads is crucial if researchers are to find a way to combat and, hopefully, defeat it.
Smartphones do even more to improve global health. The hardware has democratized health technologies that used to be too expensive or too physically far for most people to access. With smartphones, physicians can conduct sophisticated medical tests or procedures without setting foot in a lab; patients can better understand their own health and control their information.
Here are five ways that cell phones have had a fundamental effect on global health.
<h2>Providing Emergency Care</h2>
In case of a medical emergency, dialing 911 is the most reliable way to get help in a hurry. But for people who live in rural places, especially in underdeveloped countries, rapid emergency care is far from a guarantee. The app &#8216;<a href="https://murgency.com/">MUrgency</a>&#8216; promises to streamline that process. Depending on the type of emergency, it can connect patients to ambulances more quickly, or even provide users with a trained nurse to help them right at home.
The app is intended to compensate when the government can&#8217;t get the job done. Depending on where you live in the United States, it can take between <a href="https://www.autoinsurancecenter.com/emergency-response-times.htm">six and 35 minutes</a> for an ambulance to arrive in a medical emergency. MUrgency is designed to provide timely emergency care, whether a patient lives in a rural area or city. This is only possible thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones.
The service was launched in 2016 in Punjab, India with a network of <a href="https://yourstory.com/2016/05/murgency-funding-ratan-tata/">36 hospital emergency rooms</a>, over 40 ambulances and 350 medical professionals. It won <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sxsw-interactive-announces-2016-accelerator-finalists-judges-and-emcees-300203190.html">First Prize in Health &amp; Wearables</a> at the 2016 SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. Today, patients can access responder services in the Punjab; those services <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Companies/POwilzoSGnzDUx4TgjjSXN/MUrgency-brings-global-emergency-response-mobile-app-to-Indi.html">are expected</a> to become available in other cities such as Dubai by 2018.
<h2>Screening for Pancreatic Cancer</h2>
<figure id="attachment_107176" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="size-large wp-image-107176" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/bil-1200x750.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="750" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/files/2017/08/UW-BiliScreen.jpg">University of Washington</a></figcaption></figure>
To diagnose pancreatic cancer, all you need to do is take a selfie. That&#8217;s possible thanks to researchers at the University of Washington who developed a smartphone <a href="https://explorist.futurism.com/researchers-have-developed-app-that-could-allow-you-to-screen-for-pancreatic-cancer/">app that can screen for pancreatic cancer</a>. The cutting-edge technology uses computer vision algorithms and machine learning to identify jaundice in the whites of patients&#8217; eyes. The jaundice is caused by high levels of bilirubin, a yellow compound that can indicate the early stages of pancreatic cancer.
In a study of 70 people, the app had a <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/08/28/new-app-uses-smartphone-selfies-to-screen-for-pancreatic-cancer/">success rate of about 90 percent</a>, about the same accuracy as the blood tests that are the current standard.
“The hope is that if people can do this simple test once a month — in the privacy of their own homes — some might catch the disease early enough to undergo treatment that could save their lives,&#8221; Alex Mariakakis, a doctoral student at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science &amp; Engineering <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/08/28/new-app-uses-smartphone-selfies-to-screen-for-pancreatic-cancer/">tells University of Washington News</a>.
<h2>Detecting Pathogens In The Blood</h2>
<figure id="attachment_107181" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="size-large wp-image-107181" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/labonac-1200x750.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="750" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: <a href="http://engineering.columbia.edu/smartphone-finger-prick-15-minutes-diagnosis%E2%80%94done-0">Columbia University</a></figcaption></figure>
Doctors use test patients&#8217; blood to check for a number of elements of health, from detecting cholesterol levels to diagnosing rare tropical diseases. Most blood tests require a laboratory for analysis, but sophisticated labs and equipment are not always available, depending on where the patient is located. For remote clinics, sending off the samples and waiting for the results can take days or weeks, and during this time, a patient obviously isn&#8217;t receiving treatment. To speed up that process, researchers from two universities have <a href="https://mntl.illinois.edu/news/article/23759">miniaturized a blood lab</a> into a handheld device that is compatible with a smartphone.
A single drop of blood is all it takes to test for Zika, dengue, and other infectious diseases.
The device itself (without the smartphone) is only the size of a credit card. Grooves in the chip suck in small amounts of blood that are lit up by the smartphone&#8217;s LED. A group of sensors analyze how light passes through the blood, which the system compares to the results of tests found to be positive. The entire test takes ten minutes. &#8220;Labs-on-a-chip&#8221; are cheap and fast, and diagnostics can be carried out in virtually any environment.
The researchers hope their device can detect even more pathogens in the future. A<a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-03-lab-on-a-chip-platform-pathogen.html"> similar lab-on-a-chip</a>, created by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy &amp; Immunology in Leipzig, Germany, can detect E. coli and salmonella pathogens in the blood.
Similarly, researchers at Columbia University have developed a smartphone dongle that can diagnose HIV and syphilis <a href="http://engineering.columbia.edu/smartphone-finger-prick-15-minutes-diagnosis%E2%80%94done-0">in just 15 minutes</a>. &#8220;Coupling microfluidics with recent advances in consumer electronics can make certain lab-based diagnostics accessible to almost any population with access to smartphones. This kind of capability can transform how health care services are delivered around the world,&#8221;  Samuel Sia, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, said in <a href="http://engineering.columbia.edu/smartphone-finger-prick-15-minutes-diagnosis%E2%80%94done-0">a 2015 article published on the university&#8217;s website</a>.
<h2>Tracking the Spread of Disease</h2>
Epidemiology is a deceptively complex field. Researchers have to pinpoint the origin and cause of an outbreak, often as it continues to spread. Collecting data can be difficult in rural areas; infrastructure can limit communication. Even if scientists have a good understanding of the symptoms of the disease and the way it is transmitted to humans, they may still struggle to keep track of those who are infected.
Cell phones have changed that. Now researchers are able to <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/cell-phones-track-malarias-spread">track the malaria parasite</a> across Kenya. By overlaying maps of the prevalence of malaria over call or text data that tracked individual callers&#8217; movements, researchers at the <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/429569/how-cell-phone-data-could-slow-the-spread-of-malaria/">Harvard School of Public Health</a> have helped officials strategically deploy mosquito nets, control task forces, and medications in Nairobi and surrounding areas to prevent malaria from spreading there.
Healthcare workers themselves communicate much more efficiently via short messaging services (SMS), according to a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46273477_Cell_phone_short_messaging_service_SMS_for_HIVAIDS_in_South_Africa_a_literature_review">2010 review</a>. In South Africa, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13548506.2012.701310?src=recsys&amp;journalCode=cphm20">SMS allowed HIV-positive patients</a> to notify or trace partners, track doctor&#8217;s appointments, and employ prevention techniques.
<h2>Foster Communication</h2>
<figure id="attachment_107402" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="size-large wp-image-107402" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/10/Wrist-oximeter-1200x643.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="643" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: <a href="http://www.medicalexpo.com/medical-manufacturer/wrist-pulse-oximeter-432.html">MedicalExpo</a></figcaption></figure>
Cell phones have also helped healthcare professionals <a href="http://www.ghjournal.org/how-smartphone-technology-is-changing-healthcare-in-developing-countries/">share collected data, expertise, and other insights</a>, no matter where they live. Social networks such as <a href="https://www.doximity.com/">doximity</a> allow over half a million doctors to connect over the internet to share information and to peer-review each other&#8217;s work while still keeping identifying patient information confidential.
It also helps doctors <a href="http://www.healthcaredive.com/news/doximity-offers-one-touch-dialing-for-physicians-via-epic-haiku/505388/">streamline their workload</a> — doctors can now access patient records directly on the app, or they can even call patients seamlessly. The patient can choose to either log in online, using their e-mail and password, or contact their healthcare professional directly through the app.
As chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension become more prevalent, smartphones allow doctors to <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/tmj.2009.0165">remotely monitor patients&#8217; health</a>. Healthcare professionals can provide advice based on data that the patient collects.
Disclaimer: The Dubai Future Foundation works in collaboration with Futurism and is one of our sponsors.

Health & Medicine

Cell phones have turned global health on its head. From tracking epidemics to scanning for cancer, global health will never be the same again.

/Emergency Services

Future Society

Verizon Is Wrong. Throttling Emergency Responders’ Data Is Definitely About Net Neutrality.

Hard Science

911 Wasn’t Set Up With Cell Phones In Mind. Google Could Change that.

Health & Medicine

Five Ways Cell Phones Are Literally Changing Global Health

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