WHERE would Paris Hilton, Ashlee Simpson or Howard Dean be without broadband? Thanks to high-speed internet access, video clips have been the making and breaking of the two American reality-TV celebrities and the one-time presidential candidate, writes Dominic Rushe in New York.

Broadband made it possible for millions to download Hilton’s secretly filmed love tryst, pop star Simpson’s career-threatening lip synching and Dean’s squeaky, career-ending rally speech. As Hilton would say, broadband is hot.

There are now 34.5m broadband subscribers in the US, a figure analysts expect will nearly double in the next four years. Most subscribers get their high-speed internet access as part of their cable-TV package.

Jupiter Research calculates that by 2010 broadband internet will be in 80% of online households (58% of all US households). What was once a luxury is becoming the norm. As prices have come under pressure, growth has picked up.

Comcast, America’s biggest cable company, added 1.7m customers last year. It now has 7.4m broadband subscribers. The company said the growth was being fuelled by services such as video e-mail and by access to music, films and games that would be too much for a dial-up connection to handle. The opportunity to send granny a video of her new grandson, or taped personal greetings has proved a powerful lure.

Comcast’s launch of video e-mail followed a record quarter for the company and helped it to add 594,000 customers in the third quarter of last year.

Broadband has grown steadily over the past few years in the US but last year was a record for the industry.

Comcast said the growth was partly due to customers getting used to the benefits of broadband. But part of the expansion in America has also been fuelled by price cuts. Earlier this month SBC Communications, the country’s second-largest phone company, announced plans to start charging $14.95 a month for new customers — making broadband cheaper than some dial-up plans.

Cable companies such as Comcast now dominate the high-speed business, but typically charge far more, often $40 or more a month. The basic broadband plan at Comcast is $42.95. The cable companies justify those prices by the fact that their connections are among the fastest available — at least 25 times faster than dial-up.

The US telecom industry is reeling from increased competition from cable-TV companies and internet start-ups. Comcast and Time Warner are fast moving into services such as internet-based phones, undercutting the traditional business.

Telecom firms have responded by consolidating, triggering $150 billion (£83 billion) of mergers and acquisitions in the past 18 months as they fight back in the price war. For consumers, it looks like a win-win situation as internet speeds go up and prices fall.