The increased online use improves customer service and cuts down on paperwork and costs for the state, said Mark Recktenwald, director of the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. Allowing online filing of information has cut down on the need to manually process data. So the department has been able to eliminate some part-time help while shifting some personnel to other duties.

"It's enabled us to put resources in places where we have more priority," Recktenwald said.

For certain services, the increase in online use is clear. Between January and June 11, 406 businesses filed annual reports electronically with the state, which was up 47 percent from the prior year's period. About 19,000 businesses each quarter are required to file such a report and the fees for filing online are 25 percent to 50 percent lower than for filing paper versions.

Overall, 97 million American adults, or 77 percent of Internet users nationwide, connected with their state or federal government online, according to a recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That was up 50 percent from the prior year.

Despite that growth, the telephone remains the preferred way to contact the government among 40 percent of those surveyed, compared with 24 percent who said they prefer online. Pew interviewed 2,925 people between June and August and the survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.

"For most people the preferred way to get information is the telephone to get immediate feedback," said John Horrigan, author of the report on how Americans get in touch with government. "For a while anyway, governments will need to continue to be responsive in traditional ways."

Still the number of people frequenting Hawai'i government Web sites continues to grow, as more services and information are shifted online, according to state officials. As of this month, the number of businesses seeking certificates of good standing via the Web was about 28 percent greater than the number for all of 2003. New business registrations filed online increased 71 percent between January and August.

State officials said it's difficult to affix a dollar figure to savings created when people turn to the Web instead of the phone or office visits. But in some cases, the savings are apparent. The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism figures it eliminated about $20,000 a year in printing costs when it stopped printing the State Data Book in 1999. That publication, which includes a multitude of state facts and figures, now is available free online or on a CD-ROM that costs 37 cents to produce.

So far, much of the costs of making new services available online have been fronted by the Hawaii Information Consortium, which has spent more than $2 million building the www.ehawaii.gov Web site. Its plan is to recoup that investment and more through a fee on business transactions.