Minitel

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Minitel 1. Built 1982

The Minitel is a Videotex online service accessible through the telephone lines, and is considered one of the world's most successful pre-World Wide Web online services. It was launched in France in 1982 by the PTT (Poste, Téléphone et Télécommunications; divided since 1991 between France Télécom and La Poste). Since its early days, users could make online purchases, make train reservations, check stock prices, search the telephone directory, and chat in a similar way to that now made possible by the Internet.

Minitel was joint development between France Télécom and British Telecom (prior to its privatisation). A similar service was delivered by British Telecom to UK subscibers under the name of Prestel, but was charged by the page rather than time. Although the UK service enjoyed some early success, changes to the way it was charged that were made by the post privatised British Telecom, saw its complete demise.

1 Business model
2 Technical
3 Minitel and the Internet
4 Minitel in other countries
5 External links

[edit] Business model

Millions of terminals were handed out free to telephone subscribers, resulting in a high penetration rate among businesses and the public. In exchange for the terminal, the possessors of Minitel would not be given free "white page" printed directories (alphabetical list of residents and firms), but only the yellow pages (classified commercial listings, with advertisements); the white pages were accessible for free on Minitel. France Télécom estimates that almost 9 million terminals - including web-enabled PCs - had access to the network at the end of 1999, and that it was used by 25 million people (of a total population of 60 million).

The Minitel allowed access to various categories of services:

phone directory (free)
mail-order retail companies
airline or train ticket purchases
information services
databases
message boards

As with early considerations on possible consumer usage of the Internet, two crucial uses were initially underestimated: personal messaging, and porn services and erotic message boards (messageries roses). Indeed, these are said to have accounted for the majority of traffic.

The development of Minitel spawned the creation of many start-up companies in a manner similar to the later dot-com bubble of Internet-related companies. Similarly, many of those small companies floundered and failed because of an overcrowded market or bad business practices (lack of infrastructure for online retailers). The messageries roses and other pornographic sites were also criticized for their possible use by under-age children. The government chose not to enact coercive measures, however, claiming that regulating the online access of children is up to their parents, not the government. The government also enacted a tax on pornographic online services.

Payment methods:

Credit card for purchases
Telephone bill for surfing time: rates depend on the sites visited

France Télécom charges Minitel users at rates of up to € 1 a minute on their monthly telephone bill. The rates depend on the service called; most services are far cheaper than the maximum. It then pays back part of the sum to the companies that operate Minitel servers.

In the late 1990s, Minitel connections were stable at 100 million a month plus 150 million online directory inquiries, in spite of growing Internet use.

In 1998, Minitel generated € 832 million ($ 824 million) of revenue, of which € 521 million was channelled by France Télécom to service providers.

Minitel sales in the late 1990s accounted for almost 15% of sales at La Redoute and Les Trois Suisses, France's biggest mail order companies. In 2005, the most popular Minitel application was Teleroute, the online real-time freight exchange, which accounted for nearly 60% of Minitel usage.

In 2005 there were 351 million calls for 18.5 million hours of connection, generating € 206 million of revenue, of which € 145 million are redistributed to 2000 service providers (these numbers have a loss of around 30% per year). There are now still 6 million terminals owned by France Télécom, which are left to their users in order to avoid recycling problems. The main uses were bank and finance services because of its security, and professional databases access. France Télécom put the example of the update of 12 millions of the personal vitale health care card.^[1]

^ France Telecom (2005). Bilan Minitel 2005 (PDF, 920KB). Press release. Retrieved on 2006-08-02.

The Minitel service will end on December 31^st, 2006, to be replaced by Le Compte Achats, for companies only. The cutoff for new registrations was May 31^st, 2006. ([1])

[edit] Technical

Minitel uses dumb terminals consisting of a text based screen, keyboard and modem. Simple graphics can be displayed using a set of predefined graphical characters. Aftermarket printers are available [2].

When connecting, the Minitel integrated modem generally dials a special number connecting to a PAVI (Point d'Accès VIdéotexte, "videotext access point"). The PAVI transmits information back on to the servers of the appropriate company or administration using the Transpac X.25 network.

In France the most common dial number was "36 15", while "36 17" was used by more expensive services. Minitel services names were often prefixed with this number to identify them as such, for example Google Minitel would have been called "36 15 Google". Thus the "36 15" prefix had the same meaning as the ".com" suffix now has for Internet web sites.

Minitel used a split baud rate system via its modem. It downlinked at 1200 baud and uplinked at 75 baud. This allowed fast (for the time) downloads using a full duplex system. The system, which came to be known as '1275' was more correctly known as V23. This system was developed solely for Minitel and its clones around the world. Other networks were restricted to 600 baud both ways due to technical limitations of the telephone network and modem technology.

Technically, Minitel refers to the terminals, while the network is known as Teletel.

[edit] Minitel and the Internet

Minitel was often considered as an impediment for a fast deployment of the Internet in France, since it already provided safe and easy online access for many useful services without requiring a personal computer. Indeed, it still has many advantages over the Internet: it does not require subscribing to a service, buying and maintaining a costly personal computer, and there are fewer security issues with respect to credit card payments and other personal information. Also, because Minitels follow well-defined standards, there are hardly any compatibility problems, which are commonplace with Internet services.

On the other hand, some argue that thanks to the Minitel, the French are used to doing transactions online, and will embrace the Internet as it offers more value and convenience than the Minitel.

[edit] Minitel in other countries

South Africa: Videotext was introduced by Telkom in 1986 and named Beltel, the Minitel was introduced later to try and popularise the service.

Ireland: In 1992, Telecom Éireann (now known as Eircom) launched the Minitel service, but it did not achieve the penetration levels that it did in France.

Canada: An essentially similar technology called the "AlexTel" was developed in the early 1990s by Bell Canada, the local telephone utility in Ontario and Quebec. The Canadian AlexTel did not become popular in Canada, never progressing beyond pilot projects in Montreal and several other communities in Bell Canada's service area.

Belgium: Minitel was also launched by Belgacom and successfully delivered services led by Teleroute until recently. It suffered a rapid decline following the extensive broadband rollout initiated by the Flemish regional government.

Germany: "Bildschirmtext" (BTX) is almost as old as Minitel, but it was largely unsuccessful because consumers had to buy expensive decoders to use it, on which the German postal service held a monopoly that prevented competition and lower prices. Few people bought the boxes, so there was little incentive for companies to post content. When the monopoly was loosened, it was too late because PC-based online services had started to appear.

United States: In the 1990's, US West, (now Qwest), launched a Minitel service offering in its service areas called "CommunityLink." The service, a joint venture of US West and France Télécom, utilized Minitel-emulator software for the IBM PC, Commodore 64, Apple II and other computers. The service was fairly short-lived, as competing offerings from providers like AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe provided more services for a lower price. Many of US West's Minitel offerings were charged ala carte and/or hourly.