Research study
How Long Does It Take to Sign Up for Internet by Phone?
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Call Call a Konecteaze advisor — (855) 503-7272Konecteaze advisor line.Key findings
- A typical phone call that ended in an internet order took 19.2 minutes with an agent, not counting time waiting on hold (median).
- 18.6% of order calls ran 30 minutes or longer.
- 53.4% of order calls were wrapped up in under 20 minutes.
Source: de-identified records from our affiliated sales call center (methodology).
These figures come from calls made between 2018 and 2025 and may not match how long sign-up calls take today.
How long order calls ran
53.4% of order calls were under 20 minutes. 18.6% ran 30 minutes or longer. The median order call was 19.2 minutes.
| Group | Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Under 10 min | 10.6 |
| 10-19 min | 42.9 |
| 20-29 min | 28.0 |
| 30-44 min | 13.5 |
| 45+ min | 5.1 |
Minutes on the call, by what the call was about
Order calls had a median of 19.2 minutes. Shopping calls with no order had a median of 7.3 minutes. Existing-account calls had a median of 3.4 minutes.
| Group | Median (minutes) | 25th percentile | 75th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Existing account | 3.4 | 1.8 | 7 |
| Order placed | 19.2 | 13.7 | 26.8 |
| Shopping, no order | 7.3 | 4.4 | 11.8 |
What the minutes include
The 19.2-minute figure is the middle order call: half were shorter, half were longer. It counts time speaking with an agent. It does not count time in a queue or on hold.
53.4% of order calls were under 20 minutes. 18.6% lasted 30 minutes or longer. Both shares are calculated on the same set of order calls.
Shopping calls that did not end in an order were shorter, with a median of 7.3 minutes. Calls about an existing account had a median of 3.4 minutes.
What to have ready
Have these in front of you before you dial. This is general advice, not a finding from the call records, and each provider sets its own requirements.
The service address, including apartment or unit, and the ZIP code.
A payment method the provider will accept, and the name on that account if it differs from the person on the phone.
The account holder, or the person who is allowed to approve the order.
A decision about the speed you need, and whether you want a technician visit or a self-install kit if the provider offers both.
Practical tips
- Decide the plan before you call. The median order call was 19.2 minutes, and 18.6% ran 30 minutes or longer.
- Put the account holder on the phone from the start.
- Ask for the install date and the arrival window, and write both down before you hang up.
- These records are phone orders. They do not say whether ordering on a website is shorter.
Methodology
Updated · Shared rules: how these studies were made
What we analyzed
This study measures minutes spent speaking with an agent, grouped by whether an order was placed. Time waiting in a queue or on hold is not included.
A conversation is a call with at least 60 seconds of speaking time. Test calls, answering machines, robocalls, wrong numbers, and dead-air calls are removed. Duplicate records of the same call are counted once.
The two phone systems that recorded the calls measure that speaking time slightly differently. The figures combine them.
This study publishes medians and shares only. It does not publish how many calls fall in each group. Every figure rests on at least 30 calls, the minimum in the shared rules.
When the records are from
The call lengths come from call records dated January 2018 through April 2025 (2018-01 to 2025-04), from people who called our affiliated sales call center. They are not a random sample of United States households, and the span is not a claim about one year.
Limitations
Speaking time is what the phone system recorded. It does not include time on hold or time waiting for an agent.
The under-20-minute share is calculated on the order calls, then rounded to one decimal place. Each length bucket is rounded the same way, on its own. Adding the two shortest buckets can sit a tenth of a point away from the published under-20 share. Use the published share, not a sum of the buckets.
Sources and downloads
- Order-call length buckets (CSV), records from January 2018 through April 2025
- Minutes on the call by call type (CSV), records from January 2018 through April 2025
How to cite this study
Konecteaze, "How Long Does It Take to Sign Up for Internet by Phone?", www.konecteaze.com/research/how-long-to-sign-up-for-internet, data from our affiliated sales call center, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Keep reading
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Call Call a Konecteaze advisor — (855) 503-7272Konecteaze advisor line.Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to set up internet over the phone?
A typical order call took 19.2 minutes with an agent, not counting hold time (median). 53.4% were under 20 minutes, and 18.6% ran 30 minutes or longer.
What information do I need to sign up for internet?
Have the service address, a payment method, and the person who can approve the order ready, and ask the provider what else it needs. A typical order call in this dataset was 19.2 minutes (median).
Is it faster to order internet online or by phone?
These records cover phone orders only, so they cannot answer which channel is faster. On the phone, 53.4% of order calls were under 20 minutes and 18.6% lasted 30 minutes or longer. Shopping calls with no order had a median of 7.3 minutes.