I'm just wondering how long it will take before I receive a press release from a VoIP company with a "hurricane spin" to it to try and maximize the exposure and impact it has. I'm expecting something like:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Company XYZ's fault-tolerant VoIP infrastructure performed flawlessly in a worst-case disaster scenario. A company representative was quoted as saying "This is further proof of our superior VoIP technology. Even with 160+MPH winds our VoIP platform stayed online. Even when customers lost power we automatically re-routed their VoIP calls to their cell phones. We successfully forwarded over 40,000 calls to customer's secondary phone line which just shows the power and flexibility of our solution."
Company XYZ's fault-tolerant VoIP infrastructure performed flawlessly in a worst-case disaster scenario. A company representative was quoted as saying "This is further proof of our superior VoIP technology. Even with 160+MPH winds our VoIP platform stayed online. Even when customers lost power we automatically re-routed their VoIP calls to their cell phones. We successfully forwarded over 40,000 calls to customer's secondary phone line which just shows the power and flexibility of our solution."
Regardless of the exact text of the release, I for one will be a tad annoyed at any company using a natural disaster with people's lives and property destroyed as a marketing means.
So lay your bets now - which VoIP company will be first to leverage Hurricane Katrina? Which VoIP company will leverage the hurricane disaster for some "marketing spin"?
Whoever it is, out of principle, I won't be blogging it here.
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I am more worried about the amount of people hurt rather than which VOIP will go down...
BTW, stop looting Walmart!
In the meantime, why not volunteer to help those suffering or needing serious help?
So I have to pay $3.19 for a gallon of gas... I have my life, I have my home... I have my future... Pray for those affected for life from this devastation and pray that the worse event you ever have to face in life is expensive gas......
Gone With the Wind - Scarlet: "As God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."
Really, can anyone really be shocked at the behavior of those thirsty, starving and swimming in feces in New Orleans? Regardless of their ability or choice to leave. They are humans. We have put people on the moon. After 4 days, why can't we get these people food and water? As a freshman in college ten years ago I studied the fact that New Orleans was morbidly threatened. I watched the TV Sunday night and told my friend whose parents fled the fish-bowl city, "I'm sorry." I lived in Houston in 1983 through Alicia, a category 3, and I knew what was about to happen. I wish people didn't have such short term memories. I also wish that those who are intelligent and have the wherewithal to make changes would step up and demand that precautions are taken. Maybe I feel a little guilty myself.
Why are we letting our own people suffer? On many levels, I am intensely concerned about the future of our country as a superpower. There is nothing super about the reality of today. It costs $65 to fill my tank. How will this affect airfare? Shipping costs? Electricity bills? This will push up companies' costs and thus prices of everything. The real estate bubble is about to burst. What the hell is going on?
MPLAT supports hurricane disaster relief efforts
Throughout the past week, Hurricane Katrina has reached across the Florida and Gulf Coast regions. An estimated 1.3 million homes are without electricity and more than 100 people were left dead after the category 4 hurricane swept through the Gulf Coast states. The land lines have shutdown as telephone buildings flooded.
MPLAT have many customers from United States of America, MPLAT decide to donate to support the ongoing relief effort. We will donate ten dollars in every selling flashphone, to Canadian Red Cross, is working with the American Red Cross to help refugees.
Those who wish to assist the immediate relief efforts may donate to the Red Cross.
Canadians with good reason to believe that Canadian relatives are in the affected areas may contact the Emergency Operations Centre of Foreign Affairs Canada at 1 800 387-3124; or by e-mail at sos@international.gc.ca.
The US Government's Federal Emergency Management Agency website - www.fema.gov - has extra information on locating missing relatives and friends.
For every order of the flashphone, and ten dollars of sale income will donate to Canadian Red Cross.
Thank you.
Mobile phones users in Katrina affected Area Codes,
(especially prepay users) are demographically and geographically,
out of minutes, have no airtime, on second batteries.
The lucky have some capability to re-charge.
Big Mobile Phone providers plan a release of phone cards at the Astrodome.
It's a media circus.
Big Mobile Phone providers are proposing a limited number of methods
to deal with a National Catastrophe impacting oil and food exports and imports.
The oil reserves themselves are in and amongst this destruction in the salt domes.
Old School, the phone companies could easily pump free minutes into all phones
with the same programs they send you all that spam with.
An immidiate and global distribution of FREE MINUTES and FREE AIRTIME
to all phones in the Katrina devestated Area codes and Katrina evacuation routes
must be implemented now. Out of minutes = no communication = disorganization
Physical distribution of cards will create a fast and dangerous trade market.
The people who distribute these cards could seed more volitility into this situation.
The people distributing these cards in the long-term are in a dangerous physical situation.
The people of this nation affected by National Security and National Disaster issues
as a result of Hurricaine Katrina must have MANY to MANY communication NOW.
Vendor locations for pre-pay are shut down,
phone cards along evacuation routes are sold-out or in limited supply.
These refugees don't have, or cannot get to, prepay cash.
Our phone service is so capitalized and compartmentalized,
it seems very inneffective at this time compared to a wide open
100% free phone system. And I'm not advocating a 100%
free phone market of any sort, I just want you to think
about the difference it would make and how close
we can get to that, in the shortest amount of time.
For the purposes of Katrina RESCUE and RELIEF.
Pre-pay Mobile Phone user Market closely mimic those
Americans victimized by Natural Disasters.
They are prey to SCAMS and FRAUD.
Young people with prepay 'Virgin Mobile' phones as well as
the markets of Tracone, prepay markets, are not being afforded
the opportunity to use their EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION DEVICES,
especially in the long-term. These markets must be sustained
with the Automatic scripting of free minutes pumped into the phones,
globally with no regard for economic strata, race, etc..
Again, the pre-pay Market is made up of the poor, elderly, infirm,
handicapped, low and fixed income, children, etc ...
The phones are lifelines to order in the short and longterm.
The FCC must require all phone companies to fill all phones in the
area codes affected by Katrina, especially flooded New Orleans,
with free minutes. This must be done globally without
regard for race or economic class. The AUTOMATED scripting
on Mobile phone service providers administrative computers to
push free minutes and free airtime globally to all Mobile Phones in Katrina
affected areas is the American thing to do. Push the free minutes
to prepay and to CORPORATE customers as well. Give them to everyone,
now. Let this place communicate and continue RESCUE, continue RELIEF,
and continue to REBUILD in the longterm.
Alltell.com is continuing to produce an organized, informed and effective
response to Hurricaine Katrina Relief issues.
http://www.alltell.com/corporate/media/0905hurricanerelief.html
Other Mobile Phone Providers are thinking and acting, check their homepages.
HERE ARE THE EMAILS for the FCC bigwigs,
email them to get free minutes for Katrina devestated area codes -
KJMWEB@fcc.gov
Kathleen.Abernathy@fcc.gov
Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov
Copy and paste those emails into the -TO- box of your email.
I don't want to attack the phone companies.
I just want all of us to send some suggestions as to how they can help.
Ask the Mobile Phone companies for what we need, free airtime,
unemcumbered with their marketing schemes.
Email the customer service departments of all the Mobile Phone
companies you can think of. Gather their customer service EMAILS,
their Media reps emails. Forward all of this.
Check knowledgeable communities on the internet that address
the needs of Katrina Victims and Refugees. Ask the phone companies
for what we need, free airtime, unemcumbered with their marketing schemes.
Ask the Mobile Phone companies to establish an account to
DONATE FREE MINUTES from YOUR PLAN.
Ask them to MATCH YOUR DONATION.
Thus, any injured or incapacitated person with a phone, and any phone
they might FIND that is working will get them through. Many to many
communication.
Auto location of the looters who hunker down can be facilitated,
they can be saved also, rather than slaughtered.
Additional resuce is enabled which is critical as resuce options
continue to approache the point of no return for some stranded infirm, etc..
People will come through the network.
That's what this is about right, people!
Where there are discarded phones, their are babies, children,
women and men. The phones need to have minutes.
Guard dogs can hear phones dialing, ringing, etc..
Guard electronics can sniff and locate the phones, as well as the
ability of a Guard dog to smell a warm cell phone, the warm battery
and it's characteristic smell.
These phones are lifelines and key to restoring order.
A lot of young and elderly will die of dehydration in the next days.
Refugees need to FIND THE RESOURCES, they need minutes.
Many of them are lost, out of state, with no transportation.
The Katrina refugees need free minutes and free airtime.
Those needing rescue need those minutes.
The automated and global scripting of a push of free minutes to all cell phones
will most importantly transcend the racial and class structures.
This is DISASTER RELIEF and should never
approach the line over which NATURAL DISASTER PROFITEERING
is approached, lonterm or shorterm, by any company.
Jockying for market position at the demise of the American People,
will be observed if it is present.
Schemes to give out free phones to lock in desparate customers in the
months ahead are PUTRID. Schemes to get customer database information
for Phone Marketing departments is off limits here.
Keep it on the up and up, script the automated push of the free minutes
to all Mobile Phones in the Katrina devestated area codes and evacuation routes,
gloabally. Now.
"Man is Wolf to Man" is the title of a book about the Russian Gulag. But, as far as I am concerned it is the story of New Orleans. Granted, New Orleans was always one of the filthiest and most corrupt cities in the world (no wonder almost 2/3 of the cops disappeared, there was no taking to be had in a hurricane). The mayor is an irresponsible crude individual who didn't think the people he claimed to be representing worth the cost of gassing up his buses. So, when he called for a mandatory exit from town, he had nothing to offer to the careless but a meaningless destination. And now, to stay in the headlines he illegally removes those who want to stay in their homes by force of California Highway patrolmen. At least there's no city for him to claim to be mayor of!
And so, his "honor" the mayor-- to save on gas-- called on the careless to walk to a few gathering spots for the lambs. When they got there, the cupboard was bare. But as the levies gave and the city flooded, his "honor" was busy giving press conferences at which he called on the Feds to stop "having damned press conference." And so his "my people" literally rotted for lack of water and foot for three hot days and nights. By the time relief came only the "fittest" were still alive. The "wolves" had eaten all the others!
And then there is the incompetent Mr. Brown, whose only qualification for FEMA director was that he had been fired from his previous job and so helped out in the Bush campaign. Of course, Bush who was a political nobody payed off all those willing to invest in a nobody and for that you and I are STILL paying!
Among the victims there was an incredible passivity and lack of collaborative effort blind to the guy to the left and to the right as each shouts into the camera: "we want..."
And then there's the Congressional Black Caucus....not worth the digital pain of typing on the keyboard.
All in all a lot of American proved that Americans have big hearts-- and not racist hearts either. But institutionally, New Orleans is Baghdad. Yes, the folks who brought "liberation" to Baghdad brought "relief" to New Orleans. Now do you understand why the Iraqis are killing our boys?
When Americans insert themselves in bureaucracies they become bureaucrats with little hearts. But when they help and give as individuals they have big hearts indeed. Let that be the lesson of Hurricane Katrine: Americans have no feelings when structured as everything from FEMA to Red Cross. But when they run as neighbor to help neighbor they do it with their love splashed on their faces for their fellow men. So, Americans are not wolves, only their politicians and religious leaders are as organization men!
Daniel E. Teodoru
This is something similar about what Tom Keating wrote in his blog...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802058.html?referrer=email
but it talks about how voip and IT are helping people.
greetings
I really don't care about the whole thing. I mean, I feel sorry for the victims but I'm not going to put a whole in my pocket for them. They knew it was comming; they knew it was gonna be bad, and yet they just stayed there until it was too late. Right now I am being forced to have my cousine and her 5, that's right 5, children live in my house. they aint got no home training and I'm sick of it. They are so triflin! Anyways, I feel sorry for them but its their own fault and I'd wrather have them all die. At least they would be in a better place. But I sure as hell am not gonna support anything that has to do with Katrina.