Surely, that downtime quote is apocryphal. The early decades were plagued by poor service due to maintenance, mechanical failure, and human error. In the early decades, manual switchboards were the primary method of connecting calls. The intense workload and physical demands on operators often led to service disruptions . In 1907, over 400 operators went on strike in Toronto, severely impacting phone service. The strike was driven by wage disputes, increased working hours, and poor working conditions
They didn't have downtime logs, but that doesn't mean that the rapid growth of telephone demand didn't outpace the Bell System's capacity to provide adequate service. The company struggled to balance expansion with maintaining service quality, leading to intermittent service issues .
Bell System faced significant public dissatisfaction due to poor service quality. This was compounded by internal issues such as poor employee morale and fierce competition.