Dot.com in doldroms while Net use rises

Gloom remains unabated in the dot.com sector, but the inexorable rise of the internet continues, figures released yesterday suggest. They showed that the level of internet use in Britain is now equivalent to sending about one million e-mails a second during peak periods.

Gloom remains unabated in the dot.com sector, but the inexorable rise of the internet continues, figures released yesterday suggest. They showed that the level of internet use in Britain is now equivalent to sending about one million e-mails a second during peak periods.

A raft of new potential customers has led to the doubling of online traffic in nine months. The number of transactions is equivalent to sending 360,000 e-mails, though that figure is only one-third of the total comprising users tapping into websites based in the US and activity within networks.

The London Internet Exchange (LINX) figures showed that the flow between networks in the UK topped the six gigabit per second mark for the first time last week. The rapid rise of computers in the home is one of the key factors in the 10-fold increase from two years ago, says Roland Perry, LINX director of public policy. The flows reach a high mark at about 3pm when users in the US surf the Web and delve into British sites. The level dips until about 6pm when it rises to another smaller peak while operators in Britain make use of cheaper telephone call rates.

Longer e-mails with attachments, bigger mailing lists and flat rate monthly charges for internet use are all behind the steady increase in traffic. Nearly one third of UK users are now estimated to use the flat rate charges instead of paying for the cost of a telephone call.

"The internet is being used more and more. Whatever the rise and fall of the dot.com companies, the business continues to grow and grow steadily and it shows no sign of decreasing,"Mr Perry said.

But Dr Emanuele Giovannetti, of the department of applied economics at Cambridge University, said the figures did not reveal any clear messages for the industry. "By sending more pictures to friends in attached files you increase the amount of traffic but are not increasing the potential demand for dot.com companies."