The service was rolled out experimentally in 1978 in Brittany and throughout France in 1982 by the PTT ( Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones ; divided since 1991 between France Télécom and La Poste ). [1] From its early days, users could make online purchases, make train reservations, check stock prices, search the telephone directory , have a mail box, and chat in a similar way to what is now made possible by the Internet .

The Minitel was a Videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and is considered one of the world's most successful pre- World Wide Web online services.

1985 TELIC-1 Alcatel Minitel terminal with non-AZERTY keyboard

In 1978 France Télécom, the country's PTT, began designing the Minitel network. By distributing terminals that could access a nationwide electronic directory of telephone and address information, it hoped to increase use of the country's 23 million phone lines, and reduce the costs of printing printed phone books and employing directory assistance personnel.[5] Millions of terminals were given for free (officially loans, and property of the PTT) to telephone subscribers. The telephone company emphasized ease of use; one observer wrote that "the Minitel terminal requires slightly more training than a toaster to operate". By offering a popular service on simple, free equipment, Minitel achieved high market penetration and avoided the chicken and the egg problem that prevented widespread adoption of such a system in the United States.[4] In exchange for the terminal, the possessors of Minitel would only be given the yellow pages (classified commercial listings, with advertisements). The white pages were accessible for free on Minitel, and they could be searched by a reasonably intelligent search engine; much faster than flipping through a paper directory.

A trial with 1,500 residential telephone customers began in Ille-et-Vilaine in May 1981. The service became available in metropolitan Paris in December 1983. in By early 1986 1.4 million terminals were connected to Minitel, with plans to distribute another million by the end of the year. To reduce opposition from newspapers worried about competition from an electronic network, they were allowed to establish the first consumer services on Minitel. Libération offered 24-hour online news, such as results from events at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles that occurred overnight in France.[5] Providers advertised their own services in their own publications, which helped market the overall Minitel network.[4]

By 1988 three million terminals were installed, with 100,000 new units installed monthly. The telephone directory received 23 million calls monthly, with 40,000 updates daily. About 6,000 other services were available, with 250 added monthly. [4] France Télécom estimated that almost 9 million terminals—including web-enabled personal computers (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux)—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). Developed by 10,000 companies, in 1996, almost 26,000 different services were available.[6]

The telephone company only provided the white pages, otherwise building infrastructure for others to provide services.[4] Minitel allowed access to various categories:

The development of Minitel spawned the creation of many start-up companies in a manner similar to the later dot-com bubble of World Wide Web-related companies. Similarly, many of those small companies floundered because of an overcrowded market or bad business practices (lack of infrastructure for online retailers).

By 1985 games and electronic messaging were 42% of Minitel traffic,[8] and messaging was 17% of traffic in 1988. Messageries roses ("pink messages", adult chat services hosted by operators pretending to be receptive women) were unexpectedly very popular, embarrassing government officials who preferred to discuss growing business usage of messaging. Widespread street advertising marketed services such as "3615 Sextel", "Jane", "kiss", "3615 penthouse", and "men".[4][9] They and other pornographic sites were also criticized for their possible access by minors. The government chose not to enact coercive measures, however, stating that the regulation of the online activities of children was up to parents, not the government. The government did, however, levy a tax on pornographic online services.

Finances Edit

Payment methods

Credit card for purchases

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

Users first subscribed to individual services, but traffic grew quickly after the telephone company offered a "kiosk" model (named after newsagent's shops). Minitel and voice charges appeared combined on the monthly telephone bill, with no breakout of fees. Service providers received two thirds of the $10 an hour that customers typically paid as of 1988. As the telephone company handled bill collection, and users who did not pay bills lost telephone service, the customer acquisition cost for service providers was low. The single bill encouraged impulse shopping, in which users intending to use one service found and used others while browsing. As users' identities and services were anonymous, Minitel use was high at work where companies paid for telephone service.[4]

In 1985 France Télécom earned 620 million francs (approximately $70 million) from Minitel. 2,000 private companies earned 289 million francs (about $35 million) during the year; Libération earned 2.5 million francs (about $300,000) from the service in September.[5] In the late 1990s, Minitel connections were stable at 100 million a month plus 150 million online directory inquiries, in spite of growing use of the World Wide Web.

In 1998, Minitel generated €832 million ($1,121 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 3 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 8% of Minitel usage.

In December 1985 Minitel users made more than 22 million calls, up 400% in one year.[5] In 1994 they made 1,913 million Minitel calls, used the system for 110 million hours, and spent 6.6 billion francs.[8] In 2005, there were 351 million calls for 18.5 million hours of connection, generating €206 million of revenue, of which €145 million were redistributed to 2,000 service providers (these numbers were declining at around 30% per year). There were still six million terminals owned by France Télécom, which had been left with their users in order to avoid recycling problems. The main uses were banking and financial services, which benefit from Minitel's security features, and access to professional databases. France Télécom mentions, as an example of usage, that 12 million updates to personal "carte vitale" health-care cards were made through Minitel.[10]

In 2007, revenue was well over $100 million.[6]

In 2010, €30 million in revenues with 85% of those revenues going to service providers.[11]

Phonebook Edit

The Saint Malo "Annuaire Electronique" in July 1980

The most popular service of the Minitel was the "Annuaire Electronique"; in 1985 about half of the calls on the network were to it.[5] In May of that year a white pages directory for all 24 million telephone subscribers nationwide became available.[4] It was accessible through the phone number 11; on 18 October 1996 (new French numbering system adopted), the access to the phone directory changed to 3611. Companies could add up to 3 lines of complementary information and a "prehistoric" website. Ads to the Minitel phone directory were sold by ODA (Office d'Annonces), today Pages Jaunes Groupe in Sèvres France. In 1991, the "Minitel Website" for the Paris Sony Stores contained already over 100 pages. Today the 3611 Minitel Directory is widely replaced by the online white or yellow pages, available through the websites Pagesjaunes.fr/Annuairepagesblanches.org (Groupe Pages Jaunes SA) or in English Yellowpages.fr/Whitepages.fr (Groupe Phonebook of the World).

On 11 February 2009, France Télécom and PagesJaunes announced that they were to cancel plans to end the Minitel service in March 2009. Its directory assistance service was still being accessed over a million times a month.[12] This was before France Télécom retired the service on 30 June 2012, on account of operational cost and fewer customers due to lack of interest.