  We present upper and lower bounds for the tail distribution of the stationary
waiting time $D$ in the stable $GI/GI/s$ FCFS queue. These bounds depend on the
value of the traffic load $\rho$ which is the ratio of mean service and mean
interarrival times. For service times with intermediate regularly varying tail
distribution the bounds are exact up to a constant, and we are able to
establish a `principle of $s-k$ big jumps' in this case (here $k$ is the
integer part of $\rho$), which gives the most probable way for the stationary
waiting time to be large.
  Another corollary of the bounds obtained is to provide a new proof of
necessity and sufficiency of conditions for the existence of moments of the
stationary waiting time.
