Minitel

At the start of the 1980's, France Telecom set up a videotex infrastructure called the Teletel network and marketed a terminal under the name Minitel. This was the birth of French videotex.

France Telecom, creator of the Teletel protocol, integrated simple graphics and text via a user-friendly machine featuring eight command keys. Minitel terminals, distributed free of charge to users, seeded the market and supplemented the Frenchman's telephone. Through the Minitel network, users were able to access the national the national Electronic French Directory, featuring both yellow and white pages.

Since the Minitel device was placed in homes and businesses enabling access to electronic services, french information providers seized this unique opportunity to reach potential online customers. Numerous interactive services, featuring chat, games. shopping, news and travel were developed.Per minute usage rates were (and are still today) charged to the user's monthly telephone bill.

Teletel: the French videotex network

The French Teletel network was created in 1980 by France Telecom, French telecommunications operator. With it more than 20 million users can access more than 25,000 on-line services as easily as using the telephone.

20,000 services on-line

Minitel in France provides a wealth and diversity of services unrivalled elsewhere. It meets the needs of all users, residential and business alike. The language used for most of these services is French.

6.5 million Minitel terminals + 600,000 microcomputers with emulation software

The Minitel is the terminal distributed by France Telecom for accessing Minitel services. You can also use personal-computers with software for emulating Minitel menus and function keys. For Internet users, there is a software package that can be downloaded free of charge.

A few statistics (1994)

Number of hours: 110 million
Number of calls: 1,913 million

Electronic French white pages, number of calls: 784 million
Total turnover: 6.6 billion French Francs (Tax excl.)
Settlement to service providers: 3.1 billion French Francs (Tax excl.)