U.S. Election Gives VoIP Traffic A Bump

phoneboy writes "According to this news story on Voxilla.com, a number of VoIP service providers have experienced higher-than-normal call volumes today. The calls were traced to mostly Democratic volunteers making calls in key battleground states."

Comments

VoIP Democrats

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it because the Republicans didn't need the calls, or that they couldn't figure out the VoIP software?

Re:VoIP Democrats

[borcharc]

I had 20 Republicans makeing phone calls on 8 ata's and 4 voip phones with a asterisk backend calling for four days stright. Both parties were doing this.

The calls were traced!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this relate to this slashdot story

Re:The calls were traced!?

[isometrick]

"... Sakaria did a quick check of caller IDs and found that most of the calls from the Democratic party ..."

They actually did look at the caller ID of their customer's calls!? And at least researched them enough to figure out that they were Republican or Democratic volunteers?

Holy crap! Isn't this kind of data mining illegal?

Huh??

[DigiShaman]

Ummm ok...so what is so important about this bit of news? Are they implying that most VOIP users are democrats?

ineteresting

[Anubis350]

yet another effect of new/cheaper communication technology on getting the vote out. E-Mails/IMs/websites are nothing new these days, but I've heard about groups of volunteers getting together to use free cell minutes to make calls and now VOIP. Rock on!

Calls

[Anonymous Coward]

Those calls really helped too.

no

[Anubis350]

as I said in my post below, its more showing how new/cheaper communication technologies are affecting the election and voter turnout. This article doesnt have much to do with politics (though it is interesting that more democrats seem to be using this than republicans, perhaps democrats tend to be more tech savvy?)

Re:no

[DigiShaman]

Based on the politcal slant on Slashdot, I would say yes. Techies tend to sway Left by a large factor. Then again, Slashdot IS worldwide. And most people on the internet by virtue of being international, tend to be very liberal. I'm not saying this in a bad way, but that would be the facts.

Re:no

[cgadd]

My wife was suprised when I mentioned how left-leaning slashdot is overall.

I'm curious why that is. I'm the same as you, in that I know a bunch of techies, and none of them are liberal.

Maybe it's because slashdot has a lot of students? Or lots of unemployed techies?

I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

"The calls were traced to mostly Democratic volunteers making calls in key battleground states"

Surely I'm not the only one that finds this statement rather disturbing.

traced?

[Anonymous Coward]

how the hell can they trace it to "democrats", wow, talk about Orwells 1984 in action.

Re:traced?

[tonsofpcs]

Seems more like they monitor them. With some of these VoIP agreements, you let them not only track your calls, but monitor them. Read your agreements. This has changed for many of them since they started, but some still do have a monitoring provision.

Re:traced?

[Razzak]

Remove the tin-foil hat man. When your network usage spikes, you find out whose spiking it. When you find out whose spiking, you might call them up and ask why.

Just a thought.

VOIP, the FCC and the Telcos

[aacool]

The VOIP boom is just beginning - the effect on the Telcos cannot be overestimated.

Since the FCC is (currently) Republican, except harder regulation in the upcoming Presidential term on VOiP carriers.

It's a stretch though, to imagine that Democrats are larger VOIP users than Republicans - that's data mining carried to the extreme.

mostly Democratic volunteers

[Threni]

> The calls were traced to mostly Democratic volunteers making calls in key
> battleground states."

Well, given that they'll all be crying, I guess at least there'll be a good compression ratio!

Re:Give it up Kerry

[isometrick]

Kerry currently has 242 electoral votes, with Ohio (20), Wisconsin(10), Iowa(7), Nevada(5), and New Mexico(5) still in limbo.

So Kerry could get Ohio + Wisconsin + some others and have plenty more than 270.

Re:What have you done??????

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if foreigners had stayed out of trying to influence the Ohio election, the outcome might have been different. We don't like outsiders telling us what to do.

Or...

[Anonymous Coward]

Preparing for a possible civil war. (I think Bush will strike first but blame the democrats, before the provisional ballots or recounts or appeals are done).

Don't forget: in the event of a civil war, food shipments may be irregular, so plant a garden.

Re:Give it up Kerry

[foofie]

Look, I voted for Kerry, but wtf is he thinking? Once all Ohio's precincts are in Bush will lead by something near 140,000 votes. The highest number I am hearing is 175,000 provisional ballots outstanding, lets be generous and say 200,000. Last election 90% were legit, lets be generous and say 95% are legit. 200,000 * .95 = 190,000. to make up 140,000 with 190,000. Kerry needs to get 140000/190000 = 73.7%. Kerry has not gotten this percentage in any other state in the country, not MA, not NY, nowhere. Its just impossible folks

Re:Give it up Kerry

[Jason Earl]

It would appear that Kerry's mathematical skills are as poor as Bush's grammatical skills.

Re:Give it up Kerry

[meabolex]

CNN just called Wisconsin. It's more than a ray of hope, it's still very much up in the air!

That's all well and good. However, with Ohio, Bush doesn't need to win anything else. Kerry can get all the remaining states and end up with a 269/269 tie. With a 269 total electorial vote count, Bush will win by default in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives tiebreaker. As long as Bush has Ohio (which is mathematically most likely), he wins.

Re:What have you done??????

[meabolex]

It's a shame, it was a good opportunity for USA to show the world they could do the right thing.

The right thing was to ditch all the political parties, eliminate all entangling alliances, and try and bridge the values gap between certain sections of the country (North and South).

Oh wait, wasn't that what Washington said hundreds of years ago?

Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

More than 50% of the American people supports the president who started a war and deceived his people and the world about the prerequisite of that war. Regardless of the outcome of the election, the world will remember the statement you as a country gave to the world today.

Re:Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

the world will remember the statement you as a country gave to the world today.

Will the world remember the election as a statement? No, but hell no. My dear, misguided European friend. Let me tell you what the world will really remember in the years to come:

1. Nuc'lear exchange with DPRK. Oh yea. It's on, baby. I guarantee if DPRK tries out a nuke, there will be a response that levels the country.
2. Air Strikes on Iranian Nuke Plants. We might let the Israelis handle this. Or we might just do it ourselves. Either way, it looks like the Iranians have too much pride to back down on the production of weapons-grade U238. So, it will be taken out, the current chaos in Iraq notwithstanding.
3. Mass graves in Falluja. Look for about 3K casualties in 'bout a month, give or take. Rock 'n' roll. If we can't establish order by rebuilding schools, then by god we'll level the fucking place. WE... HAVE... A... MANDATE... from the US voters to handle those fuckers with extreme prejudice, no matter how unfair it seems. Do you honestly think the shame of some massacre will shock the US population? No. Abu Ghraib shows us that you can even photograph the abuses, and we (the US population) will not fucking care.

So, while you might think some political vote will make a mark on the world's memory, in truth, it will be the blood and gore that will leave the longest lasting impression.

Now, you might think that this post was a bit of a flame or troll. And in truth, I had a little fun writing it. But honestly, if you really believe what you posted, then you have to admit that we're not done invading countries.

Perhaps instead you looked at the U.S. election for some sort of apology for the past? My dear little Eurotrash, that would be absurd in America. You see, in America our elections are about the future. We do not apologize, even if we're wrong.

I do appreciate your post, however, since it helps us Republican right-wing wackos gain courage, and claim that we have some mandate or license to run rampage around the world. Keep taunting us, and for God's sake don't try to reason with us. I can assure you, we won't disappoint your expectations.

Re:Congratulations

[slashdot.org]

Regardless of the outcome of the election, the world will remember the statement you as a country gave to the world today.

Nice generalization. Just remember that the people that voted against the incumbent wanted to make a very different statement. Believe you me, it's a very sad day for a lot of US citizens (and residents, like myself)

And actually, about 50% of the VOTERS support Bush, not 50% of Americans.

campaigns & tech

[torrents]

it's been rather interesting to see the campaigns uses of technology this election... from blogs in the dem primaries to the databases and communication networks that were being used to drive the vote for the election... hopefully now that the people who make up the gov or at least aspire to are beneficiaries of these technologies they will think hard before trying to add useless regulation to them...

Kerry Concedes!

[kuwan]

It's being widely reported by the AP, CNN, Fox News, CSPAN, ABC News, CBS News and others that John Kerry has already called Pres. Bush to concede defeat.

I personally am glad that Kerry has done this. My opinion of him has gone up and I am glad that he will not try to divide the country further by dragging us through a contested election. Mr. Kerry, thank you for that.

And congratulations to Pres. Bush.