Integra Telecom, a facilities-based, integrated communications carrier, reported an increase in business Internet traffic of 30 percent compared to two weeks ago. The spike in Internet usage includes visits to e-Commerce Web sites as well as e-mail exchanges.

According to this article, the National Retail Federation coined the term "Cyber Monday (News - Alert)" in 2005 to describe the Monday after Thanksgiving, when Americans returned to work from vacation to renew their gift shopping online.

Cyber Monday is considered to be the most profitable for all Internet retailers as consumers shop online from their homes and even their cell phones. Many local businesses try and make the most of this time frame by connecting with their current customers and building new ones to sell their various products.

The increase in Internet traffic equals that recorded by the company during the same timeframe surrounding Cyber Monday 2007. Integra Telecom is the largest competitive telecommunications carrier west of the Mississippi River and serves businesses in 11 states.

The Internet traffic statistics provided reflect Integra's combined network. Integra's Cyber Monday Internet usage was compared against its Internet usage recorded two Mondays prior to Cyber Monday for both 2007 and 2008.

Business Wire ranked Integra Telecom No. 1,557 on its annual ranking of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the country and No. 33 in the category of gross dollars of growth. Between 2004 and 2007, Integra achieved revenue growth of 241.8%. The list is the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy -- America's independent-minded entrepreneurs.

Cyber Monday benefited most online retailers as this report suggests. Like their counterparts at the malls, online merchants finally got some relief with the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, trying to woo customers with deals and free shipping offers. This sudden surge in online sales however didn’t make up for a largely lackluster November.

The figures reported by comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, put the e-commerce spending at $846 million, the second heaviest online spending on record. This was found by tracking of the holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 31 days of the November -December 2008. For the holiday season-to-date, $12.03 billion has been reportedly spent online, marking a 2 percent decline versus the corresponding days last year.