The French Minitel Goes Online
from the slowly-(very-slowly)-but-surely dept
Previous attempts at getting the French to move off of Minitel onto that thing called the internet haven’t been all that successful, so France Telecom has a new deal to offer both to subscribers. If you get your internet access via France Telecom, and still feel the desperate need to get onto Minitel, and experience French online life in the virtual slow lane, you can do so by downloading some special software and logging in. They’ve even updated Minitel by making it have colors and actually be a bit faster. For such a privilege, though, you will have to pay per minute fees, which vary depending on just how important the content is.
Comments on “The French Minitel Goes Online”
A model for restrictive nations
While per-minute usage fees sound unattractive, countries like China or Saudi Arabia that oppose unregulated access may choose to copy the French model, to make accessing the real internet impossible. In the long run, the U.S. may choose to copy the French model, for reasons ranging from “national security” to “free-market competition”. Our cell phone network remains a balkanized mess because free-market forces failed to create a unified standard.