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	Minitel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		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; and, similarly, many of those small companies floundered and failed, because of an overcrowded market or bad business practices (lack of infrastructure for online retailers).
		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.
		Minitel was also launched in Belgium by Belgacom and successfully delivered services led by Teleroute until recently - although it suffered a rapid decline following the extensive broadband rollout initiated by the Flemish regional government.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Minitel (1030 words)

	Guardian Unlimited \| Netnews \| Inside Story: Minitel, the original on-line system
		Minitel is a creature of the 80s and now seems as dated as mullet hairdos and Bananarama.
		Minitel hardware evolved over the years, including a desktop computer version and even a laptop, but all had French keyboards, which to qwerty-fixated Anglo-Saxons was rather irritating.
		Minitel, perhaps, could have been a contender to fight back against the internet domination but it was too nationally defined to do so.
	www.guardian.co.uk /internetnews/story/0,7369,383699,00.html (1102 words)

	BBC NEWS \| Business \| France's Minitel: 20 years young
		Minitel, France's precursor to the (publicly available) internet, is 20 years old, and rumours of its demise have repeatedly proved exaggerated.
		Minitel is trusted not just because it is an integral part of French life, but because its closed network is guaranteed virus-free and hacker-proof.
		Minitel has been making a living charging small amounts of money for small amounts of data - a telephone number found, an amorous message sent - since the 1980s, and now the rest of Europe is starting to follow suit.
	news.bbc.co.uk /2/hi/business/3012769.stm (1032 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		In 1998, Minitel generated 832m832m ($824m) of revenues, of which 521m was channelled by France Telecom to service providers.
		Minitel uses the telnet network protocol to access information on a remote server.
		Minitel was often considered as an impediment for a fast deployment of the Internet in France, since it already provides online access for many useful services without requiring a personal computer.
	www.wikiwhat.com /encyclopedia/m/mi/minitel.html (399 words)

	BookRags: Minitel Summary
		Minitel is an interactive network in France consisting of millions of residential and business computer terminals that transmit and receive information exclusively through the country's national telephone system.
		The Minitel network was originally proposed to give French residents universal access to an electronic telephone directory, to reduce the cost of paper telephone books, and to promote the nation's new telephone system run by the government communications agency, France Telecom.
		Minitel continued to grow throughout the next 14 years, and in 1998, France Telecom counted 5.6 million terminals installed, from which 176 billion calls were made to Minitel.
	www.bookrags.com /research/minitel-csci-01 (902 words)

	Minitel - a story (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		Minitel, he told me, had evolved a system where you could swipe credit cards - in the newer models anyway - with the result that you did not have to enter your actual number on screen.
		His Minitel interface was accessed just like any other network software through his PC and he used ordinary controls - the 'enter 'key, clicking by mouse - with the same effect as the usual custom buttons, which were rendered in lurid colours in mock-3D on the screen: 'Minitel virtuelle', as he put it.
		I don't know if Minitel has penetrated every home and whether grannies use it as happily as their offspring, but it has its place in every public building and the state's adoption and dissemination of it in the mid '80s, has meant that it is assimilated in a striking way.
	www.cogs.susx.ac.uk /users/annl/Minitel.htm (2214 words)

	Media Technologies and Society / Jour 705
		The original "Minitel" was little plastic TTY terminal with a slide-out keyboard, connected to a normal telephone line using a special "V23 bis" standard.
		Minitel is estimated to have 16 million regular users in France, compared to about 8 million for the Internet.
		The Minitel represents the exact opposite of the traditional academic Internet, but the opposite to which the Internet now ironically is being led by its own internal development dynamic.
	www.jour.unr.edu /j705/IN.LI.MINITEL.HTML (884 words)

	washingtonpost.com: France's Precursor to the Internet Lives On
		Minitel was designed in the late 1970s by France Telecom, which was then owned by the government, as part of a campaign to modernize France's telecommunications system and find new uses for phone lines.
		Minitel use peaked in 1997, with about 6 million terminals, but even with the Internet's growth, about 4 million terminals remain in use.
		"We are using the Minitel mostly for the phone directories, and also for services that were not on the Internet until recently," said Francoise Sourieau, who keeps her Minitel even though she has been using the Internet for a few years.
	www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wp-dyn/A61058-2003Sep24?language=printer (1184 words)

	IPN: Remember the Minitel?
		The Minitel -- still to some the pride of France -- is a relic, and its parent, France Telecom, is in danger of sharing its fate.
		Minitel continues to limp along even now into the Internet future that rendered it irrelevant, whereas many of the assets France Telecom snapped up in its public-company incarnation may well prove worthless -- its now nearly worthless stake in Germany's MobilCom chief among them.
		Minitel's place in this story is not merely a nostalgic one; the boondoggles of the 1980s begat the hubris of the 1990s.
	www.policynetwork.net /main/article.php?article_id=543 (1139 words)

	Minitel Emulation in HyperTerminal
		Minitel is a service created by France Telecom, the state-owned tele- communication company.
		Minitel service started in the 1970s and is currently available in over 6 million homes in France.
		Minitel is a French Videotex terminal that uses RTC to connect to servers.
	support.microsoft.com /kb/q136013 (248 words)

	minitel
		The Minitel is a small, on-line computer with multi-services that can be connected to any French telephone line and can be accessed internationally via modem hook-up.
		The Minitel 2, a new generation of Minitel, is now in place with some 8000 services.
		Additionally, Minitel 12 is available, the state of the arts Minitel unit which affords users all sorts of telecommunications services and can be connected to modem, computer, printer, video....
	www.thocp.net /hardware/minitel.htm (285 words)

	BBC World Home Page (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		Despite competition from the Internet, reports of Minitel's demise have been premature and, as David Reid discovered, Minitel might be able to teach the Internet how to turn a profit.
		Minitel may be an ugly duckling, but it was a precocious one when it was officially launched in 1983, intended to save money on telephone directories.
		France's love affair with Minitel soared in the late eighties with pink Minitel, whose terminals were used as chat lines for anonymous flirting.
	www.bbcworld.com /content/clickonline_archive_36_2003.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=3 (627 words)

	DigiBarn Systems: French Minitel terminal for the US market: US Videotel
		Minitel was very popular in the 80s in France as an online phonebook and yellow/white pages, rudimentary gaming and early messaging.
		Minitel was conceived in France as replacement for expensive telephone directories on paper - and after lessthan 2 years giving away the units was cheaper than giving out tel directories.
		I have noticed your piece on the american version of the Minitel terminal, and, depending on the version, you may be able to connect it and show stuff on it.
	www.digibarn.com /collections/systems/minitel-usa (745 words)

	Why Minitel lost the war with Internet, IRED
		Minitel sounds unfamiliar to many readers around the world, yet this technology was one of the precursors and possibly the most probable competitor to growing Internet in early 1990s.
		Minitel was one of the new gadgets that propelled the nation into communication post-modernity.
		Indisputably Minitel was the most important high-tech product France was able to produce and with more chance to give to the world.
	www.ired.com /news/mkt/minitel.htm (1552 words)

	The Matrix: MEME 1.05 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		The stakes are high: the French government sees Minitel as a unique, and successful part of what makes France French and they're unwilling to cave in to that "American network" which they argue is just another leg of the global octopus known as American culture.
		Consequently, in 1994, 65% of all orders placed through Minitel were paid by bank card (France does not have credit cards, instead they use the equivalent of ATM cards for all transactions), something commercial Web users still dream of.
		Some 23,000 commercial services are now on the Minitel network, and the total volume of revenue from transactions stands at 7 billion Francs (about US $1.4 billion.) On the high- end, there is an ISDN service called Numeris which offers connections at 128 kbps.
	memex.org /meme1-05.html (1546 words)

	The Dead media Project:Working Notes:49.0
		Yahoo, the quintessential Web company, will launch a service for customers of Minitel, a national computer system in France, which uses old-fashioned technology that was supposedly made obsolete by the Internet.
		Thanks to Minitel, France is the only country in which both executives and farmers have been banking and transacting online for almost 20 years.
		Minitel may use outdated technology, but it's an online service with a solid business model.
	www.deadmedia.org /notes/49/490.html (579 words)

	France - History (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		The perceptual problem that Minitel was mostly about "sex" lingered much longer, slowed down Minitel's development, and, paradoxically, increased its international visibility.
		The Minitel Service Guide came on-line with an interface that allows users to access the guide to Minitel services using French, without the need for special commands or the correct spelling.
		The line of Minitel terminals has been expanded to include eight models with varying levels of intelligence and functionality (e.g., color screen, extended keyboards, compatibility with ASCII standards, service number memory).
	www.ust.hk /~webiway/content/France/history.html (342 words)

	Why Minitel bombed in the U.S. - Forbes.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		Turnover on Minitel services generated between FF 6 and 7 billion in 1996, a healthy chunk of the telco's FF 151.3 billion total operating revenue.
		Perhaps most significantly, the Minitel's entrenched position in French social and economic life is one of the main reasons for dismal Internet penetration in France.
		The French telco imposed the Minitel on its home turf by giving away millions of terminals and suppressing the distribution of phone books to new owners--thus forcing them to get acquainted with the new technology.
	www.forbes.com /1997/06/26/minitel.html (1088 words)

	BBC NEWS \| Technology \| France's Minitel lives on
		She is not fazed by the internet, but just finds Minitel quicker and easier with its no nonsense, no frills display.
		Minitel has now been swamped by the appeal of modern software and seems a species in need of protection.
		Despite reports of its demise, a third of the French still have access to the Minitel network and four million terminals are in daily use.
	news.bbc.co.uk /2/hi/technology/3142862.stm (556 words)

	Wired News: Minitel: The Old New Thing
		While the number of old-style Minitel terminals is undeniably in terminal decline, France Telecom has compensated somewhat by making it easier to access Minitel services from a variety of devices such as PC, PDA or mobile phone.
		Olivier Beauvillian, an analyst with Jupiter Media Metrix, agrees that the Minitel is often wrongly fingered as the scapegoat for all of France’s e-commerce woes.
		Yet while the user logistics are impressive, the real story is Minitel’s ability to convert online traffic into money in the till -- not only for France Telecom but also for the 7,000 or so companies that depend on the bulk of their business from teletext customers.
	www.wired.com /news/technology/0,1282,42943,00.html (784 words)

	Modem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		A huge number of other standards were also introduced for special-purpose situations, commonly using a high-speed channel for receiving, and a lower-speed channel for sending.
		One typical example was used in the French Minitel system, where the user's terminals spent the majority of their time receiving information.
		The modem in the Minitel terminal thus operated at 1200 bit/s for reception, and 75 bit/s for sending commands back to the servers.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Modem (5993 words)

	Competitive Enterprise Institute
		While Gore didn’t detail how he would do this, Jerry Brown added his support to the plan, amazingly citing the French "Minitel" system as a model for the U.S. Citizen activists are turning up in droves to tell candidates and elected officials alike to keep their hands off of the Internet.
		In fact, the Minitels had the power of an American computer circa the 1950s.
		And, as in the case of Minitel, it prevents consumers from realizing the benefits of the next innovation, path-breaking technology to come along.
	www.cei.org /gencon/016,01709.cfm (475 words)

	MINITEL Lda. - International Visitors (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		Minitel offers first line diagnosis and repair services for all its distribution lines; additionally, Minitel provides its resellers with special funding and back to back financing programs, aimed at a variety of purposes ranging from extra credit terms for demo equipment to renting and lease funding to the resellers clients.
		(Minitel is the main partner of Symantec in Portugal and one of its oldest distributors worldwide) were behind Minitel decision to start Netcetera, a service company which supports Minitel reseller community in the deployment of anti-virus, Internet and communication systems.
		Minitel and its affiliates employ 65 people; revenues and gross margins have grown steadily over the past 5 years, with consolidated sales in excess of €14,4 million in 2005.
	www.minitel.pt /IVisitors.asp (648 words)

	TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home » OLPC: Lessons from Minitel? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		Minitels were given for free to telephone subscribers, explaining the high penetration rate.
		Googling for Minitel in combination with “success” and “failure” is ultimately a failure itself.
		The minitel depended on a strong central government, which is the system in many of the countries OLPC and Negroponte are targetting.
	www.teleread.org /blog/?p=5251 (1676 words)

	Minitel – the Beta Internet Breaks Out
		The company expects its Minitel service to generate $2,666 a month in revenues, and figures that could grow to as much as $7,000 a month in the near future, according to CEO Loic Lecharny.
		In turn, Minitel companies charge users about 5 cents to $1.20 a minute to connect to their services (though charges can sometimes soar even higher).
		In real terms, Minitel's revenues are down 12 percent from 1999, and traffic and revenues have been falling steadily since 1993.
	www.thestandard.com /article/0,1902,23614,00.html (631 words)

	Minitel - France.com
		There are only three free services available on the Minitel: the French White Pages directory, a presentation of France Telecom, and a guide to services offered through the Minitel.
		In fact, thanks to the Minitel, for the last 15 years the French have been able to do online what americans and the rest of the world can now do with the Internet.
		Unfortunately, owned and operated by a state monopoly jalous of its formidable cash flow (several billions of French francs per year), the Minitel is ill-fitted to compete against the onslaught of "open" (and mostly free!) networks such as the Internet.
	www.france.com /docs/12.html (334 words)

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