Minitel

   A first generation computerised videotext system, the Minitel briefly put France into the position of world leader in videotext access. Launched in 1982, the Minitel system rapidly entered the majority of French households and offices thanks to a masterly government policy of offering the basic terminals free to all telephone subscribers. Several years before the Internet explosion, the Minitel offered French telephone subscribers free access to a range of information services, including national telephone directories; it also offered a number of pay-per-view services, receipts from which were designed to help pay back the investment in the system. However, the success of the Minitel was also instrumental in slowing down France's uptake of the Internet. While the government remained keen to protect and promote this French technological success in the face of competition from a foreign system, many Minitel service providers also had a good reason to defend the system too. Provision of information via the Minitel, charged by the second, rapidly became seen as a lucrative activity (notably for the "Minitel rose" sites) - far more so than via Internet, where most general information is provided free of charge to the viewer. This economic disincentive meant that many major French providers of Information, such as the SNCF, were reluctant to replace, or even complement, slow but profit-making Minitel services by faster free Internet services - thus delaying French uptake of the Internet.

   Minitel services were completely phased out in 2011.