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."

The calls were traced!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this relate to this slashdot story [slashdot.org]

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: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?

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.

spam

[fuckwhatisthishotmai]

i call it spam

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.

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.

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

To our foreign friends (What have you done??????)

[BlueStrat]

"Oh my god, how can be reelected again a patetic monkey such George W. Bush?? I can't believe USA is so stupid. I thought 4 years of global shit was enought to fire that crazy man... But of course USA is different. I hope american people wouldn't suffer too much because of this. The only thing I can assure is that Europe, China and other powerful countries are going to lead in the 21st century.
It's a shame, it was a good opportunity for USA to show the world they could do the right thing."

Not to feed the troll, but it needs to be said. What we have done is elect the man of *our* choice to protect *our* interests, the same as the people of any other country with a choice will elect the leader *they* think will protect *their* interests. That the interests of the U.S.A. and that of other countries, many of which aren't exactly our friends in deed, (despite platitudes to the contrary, and some quite vocally and even materially opposed to nearly anything pro-U.S.) differs greatly is to be expected.

Cheers

Strat

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.

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.