Minitel phone card catalogue

709 items

Minitel was a French videotex service, an interactive information and communication service using the telephone line. The system was introduced in 1977 by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing but would not be introduced until 1982 More

Because the hardware, consisting of a terminal with keyboard, was supplied free of charge with a telephone connection, this French precursor of the Internet became very popular. After the first experiments in 1980, Minitel was launched in 1982 by the French public service of Postes, télégraphes et téléphones (postal and telecommunications). The idea was that this was cheaper than publishing phone books. The interface can be compared to teletext. Users could look up free phone numbers with the device. The other services were payment services. For example, with Minitel one could also place orders by mail order and reserve train tickets.

At the end of 1999, 25 million of the 60 million French had access to a Minitel device. Despite the rise of the internet, in 2009 10 million connections were made to the network every month.

In 2009, the system was still used by 2 million people in France, although it was increasingly supplanted by the internet. There was even an ADSL version of Minitel.

In the Netherlands, the introduction of videotex services (under the name Viditel, later Videotex Nederland) has failed. There is still a prototype of a PTT Telecom terminal in the Technology Museum in Delft. In Belgium, Belgacom tried to put the device on the market, but there was no success.

France Télécom shut down Minitel on June 30, 2012.

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Number of phone cards

709

Number of related items

Oldest item

Télétel (1983)