roundtable: Minitel penetration and technology innovation

roundtable: Minitel penetration & technology innovation

Minitel penetration & technology innovation

W. Curtiss Priest (BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu)
Fri, 25 Aug 95 09:08:07 EDT 

Message-Id: <9508251506.AA01661@a.cni.org>
Date:         Fri, 25 Aug 95 09:08:07 EDT
From: "W. Curtiss Priest" <BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject:      Minitel penetration & technology innovation
To: Telecommunications Policy Roundtable <ROUNDTABLE@CNI.ORG>,

>From Edupage:
UPDATE ON MINITEL
Started 12 years ago by France Telecom, the Minitel computer network now
supports 6.5 million special Minitel terminals used by 14.4 million people,
almost one-third of France's adult population.  Use of the system for games
and sex has declined from 22% of total usage to 14%, and the French now use
the system mainly for such practical things as banking and public
information sevices.  Minitel now offers 24,600 services, offered by more
than 10,000 companies.  (The Economist 19 Aug 95 p62)

CITS Commentary:

For supporters of the market system, it should be pointed out that France
has had access to Minitel services for nearly fifteen years due to
'government intervention.'

The have access to banking services that we are still only thinking about
here!

Surely our Internet is more sophisticated, but most of its features,
including Mosaic were products of government funding in this country.
A lesson?  Don't immediately discount the role of government.  What
has been handed over to the private sector amounts to "down hill sledding"
They didn't invent TCP/IP or many of the other features of the Internet.
We deregulated long distance carriers over a decade ago.  Yet Mosaic
did not come from MCI, Sprint or AT&T.  Nor was it the product of
an entrepreneurial startup.  Why?

While markets gobble up the profits to be made from these ventures, where
will the next generation of advances come from?  Given industry's
continued penchant for quarterly profits and lower R&D expenditure,
don't expect them to necessarily from from the private sector.

Dr. W. Curtiss Priest
Information Economist
Member, American Economics Association(AEA)

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