!BROADBAND BONANZA!

BT Openworld is up and running. GPRS is around the corner. Broadband is a buzzword.

ADSL provider posters are sprouting up all over the tube. Broadband is about to become a mass market phenomenon.

By 2005 there'll be 4.5 million broadband users in the UK. Broadband users spend far more time online - amean average of 13.6 hours a week compared to 5.4 for narrowband users.*

In the US, broadband users are twice as likely to download or stream audio and video contentthan narrowband users.^

Broadband will herald huge changes for the nature of the Internet. Websites will no longer be hampered by their users narrowband access. Broadband will enable the internet to look and feel the way most users want it to be. Shoddy shockwave games will be a thing of the past, make way for playstation 2 games!

For the users the key selling points will be speed, fast surfing and the ability to download rich media (especially televisual). The consumer wants to be entertained and AOL Europe can easily create a mouth-watering broadband experience.

The challenge as I see it, is to fill it with decent interactive content, and AOL Europe is perfectly poised to become the leading broadband portal in the UK and Europe.

Let the good times roll.