Mostly, sites stay up, the network is up, reports run accurately, databases are backed up. In June much of the peninsula north of Silicon Valley lost phone service for a week because of a fire in a fiber vault. Gas stations that depended on the phone for credit-card authorizations could accept only cash. Talk about revenue critical. In August our office could not call long distance because our long-distance carrier, Qwest, had a cable cut in Indiana and then, I understand, one in Northern California.
Wireless access is even more unreliable.
Likewise the Internet. Even the best-connected sites suffer interruptions in IP service. This tradition has all but gone away. Now, if you misaddress an e-mail, you never know it. Similarly, the ability to get receipt acknowledgments has all but disappeared.