Press Release
Local DC Companies, BetterWorld Telecom and Aptela, Join Forces to Help Obama Campaign Improve its Communications Infrastructure Across Seven Key Battleground States
Two Fast-Growing Northern VA Telecommunications Companies Answer the Call to Provide Critical Functionality to Obama Camp in Crucial Last Stage of Campaign
Washington, DC – November 20, 2008
With just two weeks left to go until Americans would cast their vote on Election Day for the 44th President of the United States, the Obama-Biden Campaign for Change team realized that its communications infrastructure would not be able to withstand the deluge of calls coming in from voters and volunteers in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Colorado and Nevada. Team Obama needed a quick and cost-effective communications solution FAST — one that would be able to handle its Public Voter and Volunteer hotlines. A “3:00 am-like” phone call was made, and luckily, two Northern Virginia telecommunications companies ― BetterWorld Telecom, a nationwide, full-service voice and data services carrier in Reston, and Aptela, a Herndon-based provider of Hosted Voice Over IP (VoIP) solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses ― were there to answer the call and help Team Obama get over the goal line.
“After receiving the call from the Obama Campaign in the election’s closing weeks, BetterWorld quickly sprung into action and teamed up with its longtime hosted technology and VoIP network partner, Aptela,” tells BetterWorld President and Co-Founder Matt Bauer. “Together, BetterWorld and Aptela were able to successfully formulate a technology solution for the Obama Campaign utilizing VoIP, Virtual PBX and Unified Communications by overlaying and enhancing the campaign’s existing infrastructure, while increasing their ability to handle large, spiking call volumes, distributing the calls for volunteer operators, and most importantly, not issuing any busy signals to callers.”
“Though it is not our company policy to endorse political positions or candidates,” explains Bauer, “we were excited to have found a new application for our solutions in political campaigns ― extending our philosophy of increased of democracy in the workplace through innovative technology. As BetterWorld has been a strong proponent of technologies which enable greener and more democratic solutions for the workplace, we knew our portable and flexible solutions could truly make a difference in this setting.”
Buck Helmke, an IT Director with the Obama Campaign for Change 2008, noted that “I would like to thank the BetterWorld/Aptela team for their excellent speed and service. They worked with us on a very tight schedule to get us the service we needed. The flexibility they provided allowed us to handle the dynamic problems that we faced.”
Specifically, BetterWorld and Aptela determined the essential setup for one of the state campaign offices and then replicated that framework across the other six campaign office locations. Needless to say, there was no time for error and the BetterWorld/Aptela team worked morning, noon and night for the next week, turning up 385 virtual seats, all with full call center features and functionality so the seven battleground state offices could efficiently handle and process up to 10 times more calling volume than previously possible.
“We thrive on helping each of our customers set up their hosted phone service quickly and affordably. This was a particularly exciting project for all of us and demonstrates our agility and responsiveness,” said Larry Barker, President and CEO of Aptela. “Working side-by-side with BetterWorld, we are proud to have been actively involved in the historic 2008 Presidential election process.”
Aptela
Aptela is a leading provider of enterprise-class Hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) Solutions for Small- and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). Aptela’s Software as a Service (SaaS) business model provides SMBs with a reliable, secure and affordable telephony solution ― a valuable alternative to costly internal PBX systems. Aptela’s flexible applications are designed to be fully integrated into the workflow of today’s distributed and mobile workforce. Unlike traditional telephony that is tied to a physical location, Aptela’s features can be accessed ― anywhere, anytime ― through the Internet, traditional wire-line or cellular networks. Aptela was recently recognized as a “Rising Star” on Deloitte’s 2008 Technology Fast 500. The 2008 Rising Star program ranks the country’s 10 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications and life sciences companies. For more information, visit www.aptela.com.
BetterWorld Telecom
A unique voice in the $2 trillion global telecom services market, BetterWorld Telecom is a leading voice for social and environmental sustainability in the U.S. telecoms industry. BetterWorld was the first and remains the only telecom carrier to be officially certified as carbon-neutral in all of North America. For two consecutive years, BetterWorld has also been named as one of 25 companies achieving WorldBlu’s “Worldwide Award for the Most Democratic Workplaces” in its annual competition starting in 2007.
BetterWorld Telecom is strongly committed to the environment in its own daily internal business operations and actively helps its customers follow suit by offering a menu of service solutions to help organizations and businesses maintain sustainability. In addition to reducing its ecological impact along every step of the product and service delivery process, BetterWorld focuses on serving businesses and organizations that support social justice and sustainability while donating 3% of its revenues to causes that benefit children, education, fair trade, and the environment. For more information, visit www.betterworldtelecom.com.
