DIAGNÓSTICO DE LA CONTAMINACIÓN DE RESIDUOS SÓLIDOS DEL

By the early 1990s, it was clear that most videotex networks had not attracted many subscribers. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, critics wrote about networks such as Prestel and derided their low number of users, the losses their operators had sustained, and problems with the technology. Videotex was clearly a failure, one that was comparable to AT&T’s Picturephone. However, the success or failure of videotex was not black and white. To use the word ‘failure’ as a general term when describing videotex networks is therefore inappropriate. In reality, several videotex networks both failed and succeeded. An analyst therefore has some flexibility in interpreting the success and failure of the videotex technology.173 To address the issue of failure first, this is a grey area. For example, it is clear that if people continued to adopt Prestel and did so in large numbers, there would come a point when this rate of adoption would become self-sustaining, creating a critical mass of users. However, the number of users required to create this critical mass was nebulous and therefore open to interpretation. Clearly, if Prestel had become a mass-market service, then people would probably have regarded it as a successful network. However, it was unclear as to how many users it would take to develop such a service. As Prestel had only 95,000 users by 1988, BT’s efforts to create a mass-market network had clearly not succeeded. When the losses sustained by BT are also considered, it is reasonable to conclude that Prestel was a failure, but only a failure in these contexts. Other aspects of Prestel and competing videotex networks were successful. For example, although Prestel and most videotex services did not survive, they did anticipate the emergence of the Internet. They introduced thousands of people to the concept of online information and communications services. In particular, people experienced e-mail, online shopping, and online banking for the first time on videotex networks in Britain and in other countries such as Germany. Videotex therefore helped to influence many peoples’ perception of what a computer network was and what it could do for them.174 In a way, it therefore prepared them for the emergence of the Internet as a consumer

173

On interpretive flexibility in relation to technological success and failure see G. Gooday, “Re- writing the ‘Book of Blots’: Critical Reflections on Histories of Technological ‘Failure’,” History and Technology, vol. 14, 1998, pp. 265-291.

174

A similar situation occurred with the National New Technology Telescope (NNTT) in Arizona during the 1980s. Although considered a failure, its influence over the design and construction of telescopes was important. See W.P. McCray, “What Makes a Failure? Designing a New National Telescope, 1975–1984,” Technology and Culture, vol. 42, no. 2, 2001, pp. 265-291.

and business resource during the 1990s. In addition, the utility of several videotex networks for their subscribers was significant. For example, in 1987, the Swiss PTT established a videotex network in Switzerland.175 Within seven years, it had attracted only 95,000 subscribers which was too small a number to operate a successful service. As the network had a limited number of users with an operator that was losing money, it was similar to Prestel and an analyst might fairly conclude that the network had failed by the mid 1990s. However, this ignores the fact that the Swiss service provided banks with an opportunity to modernise their systems. In particular, by providing customers with access to their accounts using videotex, this transferred some of the work involved in payment processing from the banks to their customers, with obvious financial implications. Videotex also enabled the Swiss banks to obtain valuable experience with network technology and online banking, experience that they transferred to Internet banking when they launched these services during the 1990s.

The success of an application on the Swiss videotex system also occurred on three other videotex services and networks: teletext, TOP, and Télétel. However, by the late 1990s, all of these networks had to confront the same challenge: the Internet and the implications raised for their systems by the dominance of this network. By 1991, there were 50 million teletext televisions in over 40 countries.176 The most successful services were Ceefax and ORACLE’s replacement Teletext.177 By 1996, over 33 million people in Britain could access teletext, of which 18 million did so every week.178 However, with the closure of services such as Channel Five’s teletext service and the increasing popularity of the Web, with its millions of hypermedia-based pages, the future of teletext looked uncertain. While it was no doubt true that the Web would replace teletext, corporations such as the BBC decided to adapt their teletext

175

B. Bonhage and K. Girschik, From Technology to Services: Videotex in Banking and Retailing, European Business History Association, 2004, Available from:

http://www.econ.upf.edu/ebha2004/papers/6C2.pdf, Accessed on: 19 August 2004.

176

See R. Dratva, “WWW-based Home Banking Services in Switzerland: A Case Study,” Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, vol. 28, no. 1-2, 1995, pp. 199-208, B. Fox, Juggling Memories Bring Teletext to Chinese Screens, New Scientist, 1991, Available from:

http://archive.newscientist.com/archive.jsp?id=17943600, Accessed on: 15 January 2001, and L.R. Graziplene, Teletext: Its Promise and Demise (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2000).

177

The Teletext service replaced ORACLE during 1993.

178

T. Standage, Networks that Run the World, Electronic Telegraph, 1996, Available from:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000977395300781&rtmo=gjgGZgru&atmo=9999999, Accessed on: 16 December 2000.

systems to co-exist with the Internet, until this happened. The BBC therefore created a single department, BBC News Interactive, to create content for several platforms including Ceefax, the Web, and mobile phones.179 By integrating teletext into its new Web-based department, the BBC helped to extend the life of Ceefax, until analogue television transmissions cease at the end of 2012.180

The Internet also affected Thomson Holidays’ TOP service. By 1986, travel information on Prestel had become the most successful service on the network. People could use Prestel to search for flight arrival and departure information, look at holidays including prices, and communicate with travel companies. In addition, travel agents could use Prestel to establish connections to the computers of tour operators through gateways in order to make reservations for holidays. Travel agents could also use this facility to book flights directly with airlines. These facilities had encouraged 5,400 travel agents to become users of Prestel by 1986 which meant that 90% of British travel agents used BT’s national videotex network. By the late 1980s, most tour operators had established their own private viewdata networks, the most successful of which was Thomson Holidays’ system. When the company established the Thomson Open-line Programme service during October 1983, it had connected 3,000 travel agents to TRACS by the end of the month. By 1984, over 4,000 travel agents used TOP which accounted for nearly 80 percent of the agents with whom Thomson traded.181 TOP enabled the company to book 95 percent of the holidays it offered to its customers and by 1986, the demand for these holidays from the travel agents’ 12,000 terminals generated 450,000 calls every week, with 25 transactions per second. The system provided 5,000 frames of information and could support over

179

P. Brannan, Interview by D. Rutter, 5 November 2004.

180

The Office of Communications (Ofcom) requires that all broadcasters that hold Digital Replacement Licences cease analogue television broadcasts by 31 December 2012. See Planning Options for Digital Switchover, Ofcom, 2005, Available from:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pods1/main/pods.pdf, Accessed on: 8 October 2005.

181

By the late 1980s, private viewdata systems, including travel services, had become quite popular. For example, over 400 companies had established systems, including 50 private viewdata services within local authorities. See Viewdata in Travel and Hotels (London: DTI, 1987), “Travel with Prestel,” The Prestel Directory, Edition 1, 1986, pp. 54-56, N. Jagger, Prestel’s Alter Egos: The Diffusion of Private Videotex Systems in the UK (Brighton: Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, 1989), pp. 1-28, Directory of Local Government Private Viewdata Systems (London: LASER, 1990), and Detjejaruwat, Information Technology and Organisation Structure, pp. 288 and 294.

2,500 concurrent users.182 By 1986, TOP provided 83 percent of Thomson’s business, saving them £28m in administrative costs each year. TOP was therefore a very successful private viewdata network and this success continued throughout the 1990s. However, by the end of the decade, the ageing viewdata technology together with the success of the Internet presented Thomson with a problem. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, videotex had enabled Thomson to solve a specific set of problems, particularly how to interconnect thousands of travel agents to TRACS in order for the agents to make direct bookings and therefore create an efficient and cost-effective reservation system. With the popularity of the Internet during the late 1990s, this could have encouraged travel agents to demand access to TRACS via a Web-based version of TOP or a similar system.183 If other tour operators adopted the Internet for reservations, the creation of this new business may have undermined Thomson’s market leading position in the travel industry. In 1998, Thomson therefore decided to develop a new IP-based solution for its travel business which would replace TOP and enable travel agents to use the Internet to book holidays.184

The increasing popularity of the Internet also affected Télétel. In 1987, there were 3 million Minitels connected to the network and by 1992, this number had increased to over 6 million.185 With a 50 percent increase in the number of people using Télétel, the value of belonging to the network had significantly increased in a period of five years. This value continued to attract potential adopters to the service. As well as the large user community, the number and range of service available encouraged people to acquire Minitels. By 1992, people could access over 14,000 services such as the

182

P. Shimell, “Development in Public and Private Videotex Networking,” Videotex User ‘86: Proceedings of the Conference held at the Barbican Centre, London, 29-31 January 1986 (Richmond, Surrey: Marathon Videotex, 1986), pp. 19-37. See also Jagger, Prestel’s Alter Egos, p. 13. Additional information from N. Tagg, E-mail to D. Rutter, 19 June 2001.

183

On technological paradigms and trajectories see G. Dosi, “Technological Paradigms and Technological Trajectories: A Suggested Interpretation of the Determinants and Directions of

Technical Change,” Research Policy, vol. 11, no. 3, 1982, pp. 147-162. On disruptive technologies see J.L. Bower and C.M. Christensen, “Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave,” Harvard Business Review, vol. 73, no. 1, 1995, p. 45.

184

Other travel companies, such as Thomas Cook, chose to do the same. In 2001, Thomas Cook decided to migrate away from its videotex network towards a Web-based solution for holiday bookings. See G. Black, Thomson Claims Net First, Computer Weekly, 1998, Available from:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0COW/is_1998_August_13/ai_21049504, Accessed on: 30 July 2001 and A. Adshead, Top Travel Firms Adopt IP-based Booking System, Computer Weekly, 2000, Available from:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0COW/is_2000_July_27/ai_63857013, Accessed on: 30 July 2001.

185

electronic directory, e-mail, online shopping and banking, hotel reservations, online newspapers, and bulletin boards. French citizens spent 23 million hours a year accessing the electronic directory and they could do so at home or using Minitels installed in public places.186 With millions of users and thousands of services, by the early 1990s, Télétel had become the most successful videotex network.187 Many analysts postulated the reasons for this success, including millions of free or subsidised Minitels, a ‘killer’ application in the form of the electronic directory, substantial and consistent investment from the DGT’s successor, France Télécom, user-friendly technology, and thousands of services that people wanted to use.188

Despite the success of Télétel, France Télécom faced two problems. By 1991, the government had invested 60 billion Francs in the network.189 Although a study predicted that Télétel would become profitable by the year 2000, several assumptions in the study had not occurred by 1994, and therefore undermined confidence in this prediction. The second problem was the Internet. In 1996, Internet access in France was low, especially when compared with the 14 million users using 6 million Minitels to connect to Télétel.190 However, the Internet could undermine the success of the network if the French government did not understand the potential threat the Internet posed to its videotex network.191 It did and by 1998, it had announced that it

considered that the Internet, and not Télétel, would become the dominant network of the future in France. It therefore committed $163m to establish new circuits for

186

See W. Conhaim, “French Videotex: Reaching Out for New Markets,” Information Today, January 1991, pp. 28 and 30, Housel and Davidson, “The Development of Information Services in France,” pp. 35-54 and France’s Experience with the Minitel: Lessons for Electronic Commerce Over the Internet, OECD, 1998, Available from:

http://appli1.oecd.org/olis/1997doc.nsf/43bb6130e5e86e5fc12569fa005d004c/a8093b855bd4ea328025 66ad0056749d/$FILE/10E87215.ENG, Accessed on: 14 December 2000.

187

For an analysis of Télétel’s success see Hobbs, A Comparison of Videotex Strategy, pp. 67-80 and Berne, “French Lessons,” pp. 105-106.

188

The Direction Générale des Télécommunications became France Télécom in 1988.

189

G. Poirot, “Minitel: Oui! Multimedia: Non!” Communications International, vol. 22, no. 7, 1995, pp. 23-24.

190

D. Lavin, France Telecom Set to Sign on Internet in Controversial Plan - Phone Company is Beefing up Data Network but Move Could Threaten Minitel, Wall Street Journal, 1995, Available from: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=23871952, Accessed on: 17 December 2004.

191

Since 1983, the DGT had incrementally improved Télétel in response to its users. With the emergence of the Internet, Télétel’s users might begin to value attributes of the Internet, in particular the Web, which the videotex network could not satisfy. To survive, the DGT therefore needed to interconnect its network with the Internet. On incremental innovations, competitive shifts, and radical technological innovations see R.S. Rosenbloom and C.M. Christensen, “Technological Discontinuities, Organizational Capabilities, and Strategic Commitments,” Industrial and Corporate Change, vol. 3, no. 3, 1994, pp. 655-685.

Internet access. However, this caused a problem for France Télécom. With only about 3 percent of the population using the Internet, substantial support from Télétel users for the videotex network, and vociferous opposition from companies that supplied information on the service, the popularity of the videotex system might impede the diffusion of the Internet throughout France.192 France Télécom needed to decide how Télétel should co-exist with the Internet. One of the reasons for Télétel’s success had been the Minitels. However, by the mid 1990s, this success inhibited France

Télécom’s planned adaptation strategy which involved interconnecting Télétel with the Internet.193 Télétel was an obsolete technology which transmitted and displayed non-ASCII formatted frames of information with limited graphics. This technology was therefore incompatible with the ASCII text and high-resolution graphics available on the Web. These limitations meant that the 6 million Minitels could not access the Web and read full-screen Internet e-mails. Ideally, the French PTT would have been able to reuse components of its videotex architecture as part of its adaptation

strategy.194 However, this was not possible and so France Télécom developed a new Minitel that could access both Télétel and the Internet.195 However, as this terminal cost $500, this no doubt deterred many Télétel users from upgrading their Minitels. The old terminals would therefore remain and France Télécom would have to adjust its adaptation strategy. Ideally, millions of French citizens would use their personal computers to access Télétel using software provided by the French PTT. During the early 1990s, this had happened in Germany, where the PC became the preferred terminal for accessing Bildschirmtext. At the time, German citizens and companies bought PCs for applications such as word processing and to access the German network. Their decisions to buy these computers therefore had nothing to do with the Internet. However, this advance in the capabilities of most terminals enabled DBP Telekom to adapt Bildschirmtext incrementally to the Internet during the late

192

For example, most of the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français’ (SNCFs’) telebooking custom for train tickets came from Minitels, and the Internet therefore represented a threat to this organisation’s business. See K.A. Strassel, Gallic Passion for Minitel Thwarts L’Internet in France, Wall Street Journal, 1998, Available from: http://0-

proquest.umi.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/pqdweb?index=7&did=000000027812705&SrchMode= 1&sid=3&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1103211761&clientI d=9678, Accessed on: 16 December 2004.

193

On adapters see C. Shapiro and H.R. Varian, “The Art of Standards Wars,” California Management Review, vol. 41, no. 2, 1999, pp. 8-32.

194

S. Greenstein, “Industrial Economics and Strategy: Computing Platforms,” IEEE Micro, vol. 18, no. 3, 1998, p. 47.

195

1990s.196 As this advance was not available to France Télécom, it therefore established two internetwork connections. In 2000, the company set up I-Minitel which enabled Internet users to access the Télétel network using a Minitel emulator (see Figure 4.6).197 During the following year, France Télécom set up Et Hop Minitel! which allowed Télétel users to access Web sites, with their Minitels displaying the information as text. Efforts such as these enable Télétel to co-exist with the Internet and will extend the life of the videotex network until such a time as France Télécom decides to close it. When this happens, Télétel will join teletext and TOP as one of the last videotex services to end. With the disappearance of technologies such as

videotex, this will help to consolidate TCP/IP as the standard used on consumer and business-oriented computer networks.

196

This trait was a pre-adaptive advance, as the original diffusion of PCs was unconnected with the Internet, but later gained adaptive value when DBP Telekom needed to adapt Bildschirmtext to the Internet. The concept of pre-adaptation comes from evolution. See V. Schneider, “Evolution in Cyberspace: The Adaptation of National Videotext Systems to the Internet,” Information Society, vol. 16, no. 4, 2000, pp. 319-328 and R. Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life

(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004), pp. 82-83.

197

M. Selignan, France’s Precursor to the Internet Lives On: ‘80s-Vintage Minitel Network Upgraded to ‘Complement’ the Web, Washington Post, 2003, Available from:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A61058- 2003Sep24&notFound=true, Accessed on: 6 November 2004.

Figure 4.6. Accessing Télétel over the Internet using a Minitel emulator.198

198