France Telecom Pulls The Plug On Minitel

Minitel, the French invention which predates the world wide web, is set to be switched off this weekend after more than 30 years service.

Many of the things that are possible on the Internet, such as online banking, travel reservations and even sex chatrooms, were possible on Minitel, which was first introduced in 1982.

At its peak, there were 25 million people using nine million Minitel units to access 23,000 services, but competition from the world wide web saw its popularity slide and France Telecom has decided to pull the plug on 30 June.

Kiss and Minitel

The Minitel was initially designed as an online phone directory designed to save paper and used ordinary telephone lines to transmit information. The rollout was funded by the French government and conducted by Poste, Telephone et Telecommunications (PTT), the company from which La Poste and France Telecom was formed.

Eventually, more services were added, such as train times, online shopping and weather reports, as were the infamous sex chats called Minitel Rose that encouraged many of its users to run up high phone bills.

Musician Gerome Rox recently told French newspaper Liberation that he had worked on one of these chat lines, posing as a woman called Julie to attract men and keep them online as long as possible.

However he said he was sacked after writing “I’m not called Julie. I’m a man, just here to rack up your phone bill. You’ve been screwed, which was just what you wanted all along,” to one particularly rude user.

The invention remained uniquely French, as although similar services were launched in countries such as Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands, none achieved the same success. Minitel tested the water for an expansion into the US, UK or Ireland, but it never took off, mainly because interested parties had to purchase their own units.

The decline

As long ago as 2007, Minitel was still generating decent revenues for France Telecom and plans to discontinue it in 2009 were shelved because the service was still being accessed up to one million times a month.

However this stay of execution was brief as it was announced that Minitel would finally be killed off on Saturday 30 June. France Telecom estimates that around 670,000 terminals are still in circulation and are favoured by those who are not used to the Internet, despite their increasingly outdated appearance and functionality.

Ninety percent of the terminals will be recycled, with the plastic cases used for car bumpers and metals reclaimed from the electronics.

The nostalgia felt by many for Minitel’s passing is similar to the sadness that accompanied the phasing out of Ceefax in the UK. Ceefax, a text news service transmitted through spare lines in television signals, has been lost by millions following the digital switchover and will not be accessible at all later this year.

Speaking of history, why not try our Alan Turing quiz!

If you speak French, try this Minitel quiz, from our colleagues on Silicon.fr! (In French)