By MAX COLCHESTER
PARIS—Next year, Minitel—France's precursor to the Internet—will finally meet its maker.
For 30 years the toaster-sized screen weathered the Internet revolution. Despite a text-only service, basic graphics and snail-like speed, the terminal generated €30 million ($43.1 million) in revenue in 2010, with around 85% redistributed to service providers such as banks and weather forecasters, according to France Télécom SA, FTE +1.68%which operates the service.
Despite the service still being profitable, the telecommunications operator has decided to swing the axe. "The Minitel will die on June 30, 2012," said a France Télécom spokeswoman on Friday, explaining that the architecture the Minitel runs on has become obsolete.
That Minitel survived so long is a reminder that even in today's fast-changing technological world the key to online success lies with a sturdy, easy-to-use system that guarantees a secure connection.
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A Minitel terminal, displayed in 2001. The service will end next year.
"Its success was that it allowed people all over France to access a whole new world of information," says Tariq Krim, the chief executive of French start-up Jolicloud, who learned to program software using a Minitel. "Its downfall was that it was a closed system that refused to adapt."
The Minitel was ordered up by the French government in the late 1970s as part of an initiative to get people to share information and, eventually, reduce the consumption of paper.
Launched in 1982, the box-like terminal with its monochrome screen and small keyboard was dished out by France Télécom to millions of French homes, where users paid by the minute to log on, chat, buy train tickets and check bank accounts.
Minitel popularity peaked in 2002, when around nine million French homes were equipped with a screen. However, France Télécom's attempts to export the system to the U.S. flopped because it didn't offer the subsidies to get subscribers hooked.
Fading Out
Minitel, a text-only service that took off in France before the Internet did, will close next year.
- 1978: French government launches Minitel project
- 1982: Commercial launch of Minitel
- 1995: Nearly a quarter of French homes are equipped with a Minitel terminal
- 2000: I-Minitel created so that people can access Minitel services over the Internet
- 2011: France Télécom announces closure of Minitel service in June 2012
Meanwhile, back in France, high-speed Internet gradually eroded Minitel's customer base. One by one the Minitel's services disappeared, including the wildly popular adult chat services (dubbed "convivial messaging" by France Télécom). In 2011 less than a handful of services survive, although about a million Minitels are still in houses around the country.
Minitel will leave a mixed legacy. Critics say it hampered the development of France's high-speed Internet, because it fostered legions of early adopters hooked on a slow but easy-to-use service. In the late 1990s, former French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin warned that the Minitel risked halting French innovation on the Internet proper.
Minitel's highly profitable business model, which raked in around €1 billion in revenue for France Télécom in the late 1990s, may also have acted as a disincentive for the operator to experiment with new online business models, analysts say.
Supporters claim it succeeded where the Internet is stumbling today—by providing a decent online service to all French people, even those deep in rural France.
It also served to educate a clutch of French Internet entrepreneurs who learned their trade by essentially trying to hack the Minitel, says Mr. Krim. Billionaire entrepreneur Xavier Niel, founder of French telecommunications firm Iliad SA, and Marc Simoncini, who created Europe's biggest online dating business, Meetic SA, were both young Minitel programmers.
"The system allowed a lot of people to learn," says Mr. Krim. "But it's a shame that only a few French people managed to translate that expertise onto the Internet."
