Surfers set to soar as PC and TV compete for Net

The number of households with internet access is set to drastically increase but there is no clear indication whether set-top boxes or PC-based machines will become the dominant hardware appliance.

According to a report, Consumer Interactive Services: Strategies for Broadband Distribution, from research company Datamonitor, the number of households in Europe with internet access will increase tenfold by 2000, from three million to 30 million.

Eight million homes will receive ?broadband interactive services?, including high-speed internet access, video on demand and home banking and shopping services.

Broadband interactive services have two categories ? high-speed internet access via PC and interactive digital broadcasting.

By 2000, 9.8 million homes will receive online services through set-top boxes designed for digital TV, which threaten to eat into the internet PC?s share of the broadband interactive services market.

But Datamonitor?s research suggested that there will be a significant overlap between homes with a PC internet connection and homes with set-top boxes and PC-based internet access.

Large media companies, including the BBC, Bertelsmann and BSkyB, are developing service provision within both the internet and the set-top box market in order to minimise the risk of backing the wrong vehicle. However, broadband online access, with a predicted installed base of 1.2 million in Europe by the end of 1997, looks set to dominate the market for the foreseeable future.