Alternative DNS systems and net neutrality - Was: Re:[governance] DNSsec and allternative DNS system

[jlfullsack]

Dear Meryem
France Telecom didn't invest anymore in Minitel in the 90ties. This actually 
happened in the eighties and was also intended for some African countries.
Jean-Louis Fullsack

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lee McKnight" <lmcknigh at syr.edu>
To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>; <marzouki at ras.eu.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 10:38 PM
Subject: Re: Alternative DNS systems and net neutrality - Was: 
Re:[governance] DNSsec and allternative DNS system


Meryem,

Sorry to continue my cleaning up of the historical record on this thread: 
but France Telecom did spend lots of time and money in the 1990s trying to 
promote the Minitel into Japan, the US, and other nations, even though folks 
like me were advising that it was a lost cause/not exportable.

In fact as late as mid-90s they dropped $50m - which in those days was real 
money - trying to bring the Minitel into the US...on the dates I am a little 
fuzzy I admit, but I remember that round number.

Also, the confiscatory nature of the diffusion process - ie they took away 
your phone books so you had to use the Minitel to find information - sounds 
like something the US DOD might dream of - well actually sounds like a move 
a state-owned telco monopoly would dream up ; )

Lee

Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile
>>> marzouki at ras.eu.org 11/17/07 10:28 AM >>>
Veni, why do you think that being from a given country makes it
compulsory for someone to approve and be proud of everything coming
from this country?

This liminary note being made, the Minitel (which by the way was not
created by the military) didn't make it on the world arena not
because all services were in French (translations would have been
easy), but for many other reasons, like that at that time France
Telecom was a public monopoly, with no real interest in
commercializing it worldwide. When circumstances changed, the Minitel
and its models (technical, contractual, economic.. models) were
entirely obsolete w.r.t. Internet developments, and specially web
developments.

What's great about the minitel is that the device was distributed for
free to all French telephone users (individuals, administration,
businesses..), in the early 80s, and that made it widely used by the
population, with many public and private services available, some for
free, others with payment. The bad side of the story is that this
situation has delayed a lot Internet developments in France, and
specially its use by a large public: in the mid 90s, the minitel
penetration rate was at its peak.

Meryem

Le 17 nov. 07 à 14:56, Veni Markovski a écrit :

> Hmmm... What was the system in France, which was created before the
> WWW? Did it make it on the world arena, or it remained only in France?
>
> Let's be more precise. If it wasn't for the DoD to give it up to
> the DoC, and then to ICANN, we would not be able to exchange these
> emails today.
>
> veni
>
> At 14:40 11/17/2007  +0100, you wrote:
>
>> Le 17 nov. 07 * 13:13, Veni Markovski a *crit :
>>>
>>>  It is good to think about the way the Internet came to the current
>>> day, if it was created by the... let's say the Bulgarian Ministry
>>> of Defence. It would have still been used only by the Ministry of
>>> Defence within their main building in Sofia.
>>
>> I'm confident that, thanks to ISOC Bulgaria and public-private
>> partnership, this wouldn't have developed this way:)
>
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