Last year 19 percent of households in its service territory went online, compared to 14.5 percent at the next most affected phone company, Bell Atlantic. In contrast, only 5 percent of US West's customers dialed up to the Internet. The average Internet user ties up phone lines 45 minutes each day, compared to 22 minutes for voice callers, the white paper says. Nearly a third of Internet calls last three hours or more and 7 percent last more than 24 hours per session, in part because local calls to Internet service providers are free. That's nearly triple the number of offices that were congested only three months earlier.
Typical symptoms are delays in getting dial tone and a rapid busy signal.