Come On, France, Switch To The Net [FT/eFusion partnership]
(05/15/98; 11:09 a.m. ET)
By Jeremy Scott-Joynt, Total Telecom
techweb.com
France Telecom is working with American Internet
gateway company Efusion to persuade reluctant French
customers to change from using the low-tech French
Minitel system to using the Internet. French telephone
customers were issued with free text-based Minitel
terminals in the 1980s that gave them access to French
information services and electronic messaging via the
national telephone network. Uptake of the Internet in
France has been slow, partly because large parts of the
Internet are written in English, but also because many
French people are happy using Minitel for their
information.
The companies said they will be promoting the
Internet's obvious advantages -- proper graphics, color,
and a worldwide, rather than national, network -- in an
attempt to overcome what many in France perceive as
a weakness of the Internet: that unless one buys a
second line, time online means time without a voice
phone, either incoming or outgoing.
Efusion will be supplying France Telecom Interactive,
which runs the company's Wanadoo online service, with
its enhanced Internet services (EIS) gateway servers.
The new equipment will let Internet users access the
telephone network directly from a PC. While online,
customers will be able to use a Java applet to activate
an outgoing call, as long as they have some form of IP
telephony software -- compliant with the H.323
standard -- installed.
The outgoing call is routed from the customer's PC
across the Internet to the France Telecom server. From
there, the call is routed to the main public telephone
network. The phone system can also accept incoming
calls. Users are notified onscreen of incoming calls while
they are on the Internet and can either accept them,
forward them, or ignore them.
The system will also allow websites to include so-called
Push to Talk buttons, which when clicked on, will
instantly connect the user at home with whichever shop
or business the website belongs to. This, France
Telecom said it believes, will encourage people to use
the service, since Minitel has always coexisted with the
phone line rather than tied it up.
"The thing is, people in France already have the culture
of buying online," said a France Telecom
spokeswoman, pointing to the universality and
popularity of Minitel as proof. "One thing is for sure:
Minitel is going to die. So we need to develop
complementary services, but we have also to maintain
those services where Minitel has a use," she said. |
