The digital delay is over. Multichannel digital television, which the cable firms promised us last year, is at last becoming available in homes across the State. And the big three firms, Sky, NTL and Chorus - which boast more than 700,000 subscribers among them - are limbering up for an autumn advertising blitz to woo the Irish punter.

"Going digital" means TV addicts can feast their eyes on more than 60 channels of news, sport and entertainment from the comfort of their own sofas. The choice is staggering, and for some viewers it may be overwhelming.

DIY fanatics can now gourge themselves on Discovery's "Home & Leisure" channel, while those in search of something a bit more racey can tune into Extreme Sports, the channel billed as "not for the faint hearted!"

NTL, which launches its new digital service to 140,000 customers this week, will tempt current-affairs buffs with at least five dedicated news channels. Chorus, which already has more than 10,000 digital customers, offers a similar line up of channels, while Sky's satellite platform offers Irish consumers even more channels. So will we take the plunge and go digital?

"The early indications are good," says Mark Mohan, marketing director for NTL Ireland, the man charged with selling the new service. "Our direct-sales force are hitting their targets and the new advertising campaign will make life a whole lot easier for them."

However, NTL, which has 372,000 homes connected to its existing analogue cable system in Dublin, Waterford and Galway, will have to reinvent itself. The firm became public enemy number one last year when it stalled the roll out of digital TV because of the high costs of building a new fibre-optic network. As a result, NTL's new digital offering is less impressive than the one originally planned for Ireland.

The construction of a new fibre-optic network in its franchise areas would have enabled the firm to offer consumers the so called "triple play": interactive digital TV, telephony and high-speed Internet. But the firm has decided to scale back these plans and will initially offer just digital TV over its existing cable network.

"We're moving towards the triple play," Mohan insists. For now, however, are more interested in content and the price point."

NTL's new service offers an additional 35 channels. It also packs a powerful tool called the electronic programme guide (EPG), the brain of the set-top box which is required for digital. This EPG enables users to pre-programme a nights viewing and access information about a programme at the touch of a button on the remote control.

NTL's digital package also incorporates some level of "interactivity" by enabling users to view pay-on-demand movies using a service called Front Row; at present, however, subscribers must make a telephone call to finalise the order.

But interactivity, the holy grail for digital television, is still sadly limited. According to Mohan, NTL will try out interactive services and cable modems - which give customers high speed access to the Internet - next year. But for the short-term at least digital TV simply means better picture and sound quality and more channels. All for an extra £10 monthly.

So will the Irish public pay for this additional content? The results of a recent poll of Irish Times readers in this newspaper's Computimes won't please the boffins at the cable firms. It found just 44 per cent of readers thought digital TV was offering value for money.

Certainly the more mature, and arguably more sensible, consumers may not rush to "go digital". My own mother, a long-time customer of NTL, who pays about £10 a month for 15 TV channels, probably speaks for many when she says she just doesn't need all those extra channels.

"Why pay more for channels I don't want to watch anyway?"

But its not all doom and gloom for the industry. British satellite firm Sky claims to have 100,000 Irish users already signed up to its own digital TV plaform, and that's without offering significant interactive services.

Satellite dishes cannot send the large amounts of data required to support innovative interactive services and Internet. Instead, satellite firms must sign deals with telecoms firms to enable users to plug their telephone lines into their set-top box to carry interactive services.

Sky's deal with British Telecom in the UK enables its customers to place bets and pay for boxing matches by pressing buttons on their remote controls. The company is seeking a similar deal with Eircom.

The success of digital TV in Britain, where more than 10 million homes have signed up for digital, will encourage digital-TV providers. The speedy take-up has been so successful the British government is considering turing off the free-to-air television service in the UK between 2006 and 2010.

But this success must be balanced with the fact that most consumers there had a limited choice of just five channels before "going digital". In contrast, in the Republic we have enjoyed multichannel TV for years, because we have the highest cable-TV penetration rate in Europe and a plethora of local deflector-TV systems.

Therefore, multichannel TV may not prove the attraction here that it has been in Britain.

Surfing the web and TV banking may prove more interesting applications for Irish users.