More UK households now hook up to the internet using broadband connections than choose to watch free-to-air digital TV, according to the latest research.
According to figures released by Ofcom, broadband connections in the UK nudged towards the 4 million mark in the first three months of this year as more than 40,000 people switch on high speed internet connections each week.
The total number of households with broadband connections at the end of March stood at 3,992,500, while the number of homes watching free-to-air digital TV was 3.7m.
The figures show the growing popularity of broadband, driven in part by falling prices and renewed efforts by BT to extend the number of local telephone exchanges that are broadband enabled.
Earlier this month AOL said it was joining the escalating UK broadband price wars, slashing the prices of its entry-level high speed internet services to £19.99 a month for an always-on 256kbps connection, which is around five times faster than a normal dial-up internet service.
Last month cable firms NTL and Telewest responded to a wave of price cuts from rival BT by boosting the speed of their existing services for no extra cost.
Telewest's Blueyonder service, which claims over 650,000 subscribers, said its 1Mb service would be boosted to 1.5Mb for the same price of £35 per month while NTL, which boasts 1 million subscribers, said its 1Mb service would also be boosted to 1.5Mb for £37.99 a month.
BT meanwhile said it planned to roll out broadband to a further 1,200 exchanges, reaching 99.6% of all UK households by summer 2005.
While the sale of broadband connections is running close to an all-time high, sales of Freeview adapters required to receive free-to-air channels like BBC3 and ITV2 rose to 3.92 million in the first quarter.
While the figures include those households that still watch free-to-air digital TV services using the old ITV Digital set-top boxes, Ofcom said sales of Freeview boxes were running slightly ahead of broadband connections at between 40-41,000 a week.
The total number of households now taking digital TV passed 13 million, or 53% of the population. The figures are likely to provide a boost to government plans to switch off the analogue TV signal by 2010, as more UK homes now watch digital TV than don't.
Digital television penetration now equals that of the internet, though it lags the number of homes that have a computer.
Around 13 million people, 53% of households, have home internet access, most via dial-up, while 64% own or rent a PC.
guardian
