i got the feeling when i watched louisa and vincent on tv this morning that she had been told by many people that they had unsuccessfully tried voting for her well at least she knows many people tried and she did have lots of support she actually said that people had TRIED to vote for her

Possibly, but people tried to vote for Emma too and were unsuccessful. Not me, but my brother.

and for Mark too

I don't believe Louisa got kicked out because a few people couldn't get through

Plenty have also said they did get through!

That's true. I struggled. Forgot about that!

We struggled to vote for Louisa but did eventually. A few minutes before the lines closed. I suppose it depends how many votes you wanted to cast and whether you were in a position to keep trying or not.

I don't think you can really get a full appreciation of what were the problems for those wishing to vote for any particular couple from the relatively small number of contributors to this board. If the system gets over-loaded the most popular couple may be disadvantaged. I bet no one from the BBC or their agent will admit to this.

What I would say is, that the company that runs the vote collection service for the BBC, would receive t £130,000 for processing 1,000,000 votes.
Considering it is an automated computerised system, there should not be a problem at any time. But if I remember correctly some people have said they've had difficulty voting on Saturday nights in all four series.

Hate to tell you but your understanding of the telephone infrastructure is wrong.

Network congestion will affect all users within the geographical area covered by a BT exchange & is doesn't affect a single telephone number.

Therefore, we arrive at the situation we witnessed on Saturday; & during last year's final, where those attempting to call all of the voting numbers would have experienced a degree of difficulty in getting through (N.B. this problem has been reported by FM's attempting to call all the couples' voting numbers).

All the indications are that the problem was most likely located at the, 3rd party, premium rate line supplier's end, rather than in local exchanges.

I tried voting for Louisa and Mark got through for mark but not for Louisa after 10-15 attempts.

you always get difficulties voting when stuff like this is on though. You've got thousands of calls all going to one phone number, what do you think will happen?