You might not have read about it in today's newspapers, but a significant new internet use study was published yesterday by the UK office for national statistics. The muted reception for its findings is in stark contrast to that afforded its predecessors.

Granted, through the tech mania of the late 1990s, internet surveys made amazing reading. The rapid rate of internet adoption was outstripping any technology that had gone before - even television and radio - sending shockwaves through the media industry and helping create the crazy valuations and predictions that were a signature of the times.

Now the bubble has burst, those valuations have been spectacularly deflated and the predictions are of doom, rather than glory. Last autumn one newspaper reported the popularity of the internet was "crashing", while others suggested millions of users were logging off.

Neither was correct. The new study shows "newbies" are still arriving in cyberspace - and, indeed, there has been a modest spike in uptake in recent months.

Between April 2001 and March 2002, 40% of UK households were connected. But the first three months of this year found 42% of households connected, a 6% increase year on year, suggesting that a steady rate of increase will continue for a while at least.

One high street giant is certainly banking on it. Last week Dixons announced it was looking to recruit 1000 new staff to accommodate what it predicts will be a boom in consumer electronics. New products like wireless home networks and a new generation of personal digital assistants will lead the way, but the company even sees new life in the moribund personal computer market too.

Meanwhile sales of fast broadband internet connections are warming up, in part thanks to lower prices and more aggressive marketing from British Telecom. Take-up so far suggests broadband will take longer to establish itself as a widespread means of connecting to the internet - we're talking millions signing up over years, rather than months - but the situation has improved dramatically from only a year ago.

So is all rosy in the internet garden? Not quite. Read deeper into the figures and they suggest that, while there may be continued short-term growth in household internet use, it is likely to hit a plateau soon.

Dixons might be getting ready for a rush, but step inside one of its shops and you quickly discover that even the cheapest means of hooking up to the net are pretty expensive. Even a comparatively cheap £600 PC is beyond the means of many - a further £300 a year minimum for broadband, plus charges for installation and equipment, equally out of reach.

There is clear evidence of a widening digital divide: adoption remains far higher among the young and the well off. Almost half of households in London and the southeast of England have net access, against 31% in Wales and Northern Ireland, 34% in the West Midlands and 35% in the southwest.

80% of the richest bracket of households have internet access, against 11% of the poorest.

Among non-internet users, there remains a hardcore of people who say they are unlikely to use the internet any time soon. In the latest survey, 72% of non-users say they are very unlikely to access the internet in the next year. This group represents nearly a third of all adults.

It would be easy to brand these refusniks as luddites. 44% of them say they haven't got an interest in using the internet. But 25% say they lack a computer, or access to one, and 20% say they lack confidence or the skills to try it out.

While those who have never used the internet might be surprised by the breadth of its content they are not going to get a chance to find out if access is denied to them in the first place.

Technology will catch up with some. Digital TV will offer more and more a form of internet access that will feel more like teletext than the web. Today's mobile phones, which enjoy near-saturation levels of ownership in the UK, will be replaced by devices with net-style information services and email fitted as standard in the years to come.

But, despite government initiatives to bring internet access and, more recently, broadband, to less densely populated parts of the country, it remains clear a gulf in skills, opportunity and interest remains. Britain's first 40% of internet penetration has been the easy bit: the next 25% could be a far tougher nut to crack.