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Conventional broadcasters are worried about the competition and are keen to embrace the technology.Katharine Everett, the BBC’s controller of interactive TV, told the conference that making good interactive TV was difficult, and that poorly designed material could end up confusing viewers: “The advantage of TV is its great simplicity. Ensuring we don’t make interactive TV as confusing as many people find the PC is the challenge to us all.”But it won’t just be interactive TV pouring down those fast connections. You can do some clever joining together of existing technologies, too. Gary Hare, a long-time Milia hand who used to be one of the world’s best-known games and multimedia gurus, appeared as executive vice president of Into Networks. This company does the simple but revolutionary trick of allowing you to play CD-rom and DVD-rom remotely. The company hosts hundreds of titles on computers across the US; customers sign deals that typically allow them to play a game for three days for a modest rental fee. Broadband is certainly needed for the conventional games guys.Sega’s Dreamcast made quite a splash at Milia.

It is the first games console to be connected to the Internet as standard, but Sega’s president, Shoichiro Irimajiri, lamented during his keynote speech that the Internet was so slow. “It inspired us to become a network company, but it is imperfect,” he concluded. In the wings, Sony, with the help of the Brazilian footballer Ronaldo, was busy talking up its PlayStation 2, which will have Internet access; Microsoft was giving sneak previews of its X-Box, which again will have Internet access and which will launch next year. It is also worth noting that Infogrames, the world’s second largest games company, announced a $200m investment in online services. It also is very interested in broadband.For lots of games players (typically young men without much spare cash) to pour on to broadband networks, prices will need to be low.

Mr Hare believes that competition will drive connection prices down. In the UK, companies such as BSkyB will try to create a protected market. But, if the US model is followed, cut-throat competition will ensue “There are 11 broadband suppliers in my area. They all know that unless they provide a good service at a good price we will leave them,” he said.Johan Montelius, of researcher Jupiter Communications, highlighted a novel approach to reducing prices. He outlined how Swedish consumers had clubbed together to form a non-profit grouping to set up services for themselves. By negotiating a good deal, they had ended up with services that were even cheaper than those in the highly competitive US market.But Milia was not all advanced broadband technology and super new services to take advantage of it. There were some stunning examples of what can be achieved with today’s technologies.