are still waiting to be connected.

The onslaught of new customers has left the Bermuda Telephone Company with hundreds of pending applications. The company has already signed up more than 1,000 customers.

And new heavy-duty fax machines had to be brought into BTC's Victoria Street headquarters to cope with the incoming requests for accounts from dealerships.

"It's been a phenomenal success,'' said BTC Mobility Product Manager Firoz Kassam. "We haven't been able to cope with the demand.'' BTC is usually able to process applications within a few hours.

Mr. Kassam said BTC has anywhere between five to ten people working on the applications.

And despite the initial onslaught on Wednesday, Mr. Kassam said the number of applications coming in had increased.

"People waited because they did not want to buy on the first day with all of the crowds,'' he said.

Mr. Kassam said the situation promised to be even crazier today as more people go out to buy phones.

Several dealerships have said the sales had been going non-stop since MAX's launch. "Some of the dealers have mentioned that they may need to order more phones to keep up with the demand,'' Mr. Kassam said.

A saleswoman for the Cellular Centre told The Royal Gazette on Wednesday that the shop had imported 700 telephones. And Mel Bennett of Island Satellite said the company had ordered 300 phones and may decide to bring in 200 more.

But he could not confirm whether the next batch of phones would carry the same $100 price tag.

Mr. Kassam said there was no possibility of a network overload due to the increased number of users.

"We have three times the capacity of what we used to,'' he said.

Mr. Kassam could not confirm when all customers would be signed up, but said the company may be able to catch up by Monday.

"We had anticipated this sort of rush with people getting phones and us signing them up,'' he said. "But this surpasses our expectations by 20 to 25 percent.'' Mr. Kassam apologised for the delay, saying: "We are pleased to have everybody coming on board, and are doing our best to get customers signed up.'' And he said there were no signs of slowing yet.