A hat-trick deal has made Pace Micro Technology the country's only supplier of digital set-top boxes to the main cable broadcast companies.

The Saltaire business has just added Britain's biggest cable network, Telewest, to its list of customers, with an order for 100,000 units for the launch of Telewest's digital cable channels.

The order came as a strong leg-up for Pace - which has already won the contract to supply similar set-top units for Cable and Wireless Communications and NTL - pushing its shares well ahead in early trading yesterday.

But the company is refusing to say how much the order, or the ones likely to follow, are worth. Pace already supplies BSkyB digital satellite and ONDigital digital terrestrial units.

A spokesman said the latest order was good news for the company.

"Securing all three deals means we have every corner covered," she said.

"On top of that we recently announced pre-tax profits of £8.3 million, so the future as a company is looking very, very good."

The initial order with Surrey-based Telewest covers a trial run before it launches in this year's final quarter.

"We have done research into digital TV in the UK, asking what consumers want and expect, and we expect there to be a huge demand," she said.

"BSkyB launched digital satellite in October and within two months we had supplied more than 200,000 boxes.

"The demand so far has been exceptional and we can see the same happening for digital cable."

Tony Illsley, chief executive of Telewest, which last year merged with rival General Cable, said more than 58 per cent of its customers subscribed to both Telewest telephone and television.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.