[10741] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Internet is dead!!!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (SHAW +41 22 730 5338)
Mon Mar 7 16:47:30 1994
Date: 07 Mar 1994 14:43:39 +0100 (CET)
From: SHAW +41 22 730 5338 <ROBERT.SHAW@itu.ch>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.07.9403031212.G105317-f100000@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>
To: "com-priv@psi.com" <com-priv@psi.com>
X-Envelope-To: com-priv@psi.com
Thierry Lehoux' article on Internet vs Minitel is important and
deserves consideration by information superhighway architects.
I live in France and have access to both Internet and Minitel
environments.
Although the article is seen through Minitel-tinted glasses, many
of the services we could imagine the NII to have are available
now on a France-wide scale on Minitel. Interestingly, attempts
to export the technology to the US have been failures.
France Telecom has spent a lot of money and time to deploy
Minitel in as many homes as possible - its use is pervasive. At
many hours of the night or Sundays, it's the easiest way to get
directory services. You can pick up a terminal at your local
France Telecom store, plug it in at home and it works
immediately. There are a large number of offerings. People use
it for home shopping and to interact with television shows. You
can find tourist information or look up restaurants, do home
banking, get ski snow reports and so on. You see billboards
throughout France advertising services on Minitel (often of a
more sensual nature). French talk shows often post their access
code so that people can pose questions to guests via Minitel.
Yes, the interface is chunky and crude. Sure it could be faster.
But it works and can be deployed wherever there is a telephone.
The access barrier is much lower than any Internet-based
technology. As an Internaut, I find its interface frustrating
but I know what my mom would prefer.
Although I find the proposal that Minitel could "overtake" the
Internet completely unimaginable there are some interesting
lessons to be learned from the use of Minitel in France. The
most important is that a major Telco (France Telecom) is
leveraging its administrative, billing and human resources to
support networked information services.
This reminds of an interview I just read in "International Telcom
Network" with Jim Morris, Head of Carnegie Mellon University
Computer Science Department. In the end of interview, he says:
"My theory is that even though the Internet is incredibly useful,
the human infrastructure for using the system doesn't exist yet.
There's a race here. How fast will the phone companies upgrade
their technology to offer services the Internet provides, and how
fast can the Internet offer the customer services that it lacks?
It might be easier to change a technology base than it is to
build up a human organization".
Interesting food for thought.
Robert Shaw
Information Services Department
International Telecommunication Union
Place des Nations
1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland
TEL: +41 22 730 5338/5554
FAX: +41 22 730 5337
X.400:G=robert;S=shaw;A=arcom;P=itu;C=ch
Internet: shaw@itu.ch
