For the first time, Europe has more internet users than the US. According to Irish-based industry monitor Nua.com, Europe has almost 186 million users, while Canada and the US register 182 million. The difference may not seem substantial, but Europe is still a growing market. "Internet penetration rate in the US is now close to saturation," says Nua.com editor Charlie Taylor. "However, the number of Europeans going online is increasing at a fast rate - they now account for 32% of the global internet population."
As the European market continues to increase, the battle to dominate the continent's internet service provision is becoming increasingly heated. There are three big players in Europe's ISP market; Germany's T-Online, France's Wanadoo and Italian Tiscali. Between them, they control the market with a total of around 25m regular subscriptions.
Much of the battle comes down to a scrap between Europe's largest telecomms companies. T-Online is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom and Wanadoo - which also owns Britain's Freeserve - is controlled by France Telecom. Only Tiscali stands out from the top three for not having such major backing - but that doesn't necessarily mean it is further away from finding the secret of success.
"None of these companies has ironed out the ISP business model yet," says Hellen Omwando, consumer markets analyst for Forrester. "Having a pan-European footprint is not good enough. These companies need to be competing for the top positions in each of their national markets."
T-Online has definitely grabbed the opportunity to chase as many markets as possible. "We are positioned in three of the five European key markets, which I think are Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain and Italy," says T-Online chief executive Thomas Holtrop. "Our position allows us to wait and to observe the consolidation process very closely."
Conversely, some observers are concerned about Tiscali's plans for the future - mainly because the company gained its position through the aggressive acquisition of more than 30 other providers over a short period. Many believe the lack of organic growth could be its downfall.
"The kind of fast acquisition techniques of Tiscali have proved to be something of a double-edged sword," says Darren Stevenson of internet monitoring firm Jupiter MMXI. "It allowed the company to grow quickly, but it means customers have less loyalty to its brands."
Tiscali insiders are tight-lipped about the future, but stress the level of success the company has achieved in a very short time. "Not only did we take advantage of our managerial skills and independent status to rapidly gain market share," says Tiscali's chief financial officer Massimo Cristofori, "but it is also thanks to our technology platform and our innovative product portfolio."
While the big boys grapple for the mantle of European supremacy, BT has been representative of British hopes - its ambitions came crashing down at the end of the dotcom boom, and observers argue that its opportunity could be gone forever. With the same kind of backing and resources as Europe's most successful ISPs, BT has failed to make a similar impact.
"There's a simple reason for that," says Omwando. "The key distinction is that T-Online and Wanadoo are the leading ISPs in their own domestic markets. BT doesn't lead in the UK and that has hampered efforts to increase the user base in Europe. It was Freeserve, not BT, which drove the internet revolution in Britain."
BT lost out because it was slow to capitalise on its massive user base. For similar reasons, AOL - the world's largest internet provider - has been assaulting the bastion of European access but has yet to find a dominant foothold in any single country.
But while Wanadoo and T-Online edge towards regular profitability, there have been persistent industry rumours that Tiscali may end up selling out in part - or even in whole - to one of its competitors.
"It is burning through cash like a traditional dotcom, and that's anachronistic these days," says Stevenson. "But we can't ignore the company's achievements - it has come from nowhere to being the third largest ISP in Europe in less than three years, and that's phenomenal."
As the focus for internet service providers moves towards sustained profitability, their business plans are shifting towards broadband. Dial-up markets are relatively complete in terms of growth, especially in the more mature British and German sectors. But broadband is an area that British providers in particular have been slow to exploit. Accusations of anti-competitive behaviour against BT have hampered attempts to roll out broadband services across the UK, and now the high-speed industry in Britain looks a shadow of that in other countries.
"Tiscali's proprietary network means it is very well placed to exploit a strong customer proposition in the broadband arena," says Cristofori. "Therefore, we are confident that we will substantially increase our subscriber base on a broadband proposition, while also retaining our market share in the narrowband market."
It is T-Online, however, which has once again led the charge, with more than 50% of its German internet users now able to use high-speed connections. It's something it feels is a central part of its strategy.
"We think that broadband is the future of the internet because of its quality and speed," says T-Online's Holtrop. "For us as a company, broadband customers are a very interesting target group as they spend more time on the internet and are more inclined to e-commerce."
But don't let the smart words and heavy marketing lead you to think the web wizards have found their holy grail. Europe's largest ISPs are still chasing the same elusive dream that has existed since the web was born - and conjuring money out of the internet is as hard as it's ever been.
