FYI France: France discovers the Internet discovers France There appears to be continuing interest in connecting to the Internet from within France, and in getting Internet e - mail over to French users. There also have been some new access developments. The following summarizes the possibilities of which I am aware to date. If others could correct or supplement what follows I would be very grateful: no endorsements are implied of any of it by me, or even confirmation that it works -- just offering information, and strong encouragement to try it. The French still are bringing some of us all the excitement of next year's on - schedule move of one of the world's largest libraries, and all of us all the excitement of the only place where real "general public" information networking already is under way: good folks to stay in touch with. 1) The Internet on the Minitel The easiest Internet connection at the French end, although not necessarily the cheapest, is via the French national videotex system, the Minitel. The basic advantage is due to Minitel's possession of what I'll call my six "XeroxPARC" criteria: Minitel is, i) ubiquitous, ii) invisible, iii) multi - lingual, iv) cheap, v) simple, and vi) useful, all of which the Internet, even in the US, is not, yet. I myself know of five public Minitel services which currently may be used by anyone in France at least to receive and send Internet e - mail, and the last of the four does much more. In each case the French user gets an Internet address -- i.e., xyz@internet.fr or xyz@altern.fr , etc. -- to which e - mail may be sent. The franc currently is about 5.3 per dollar, so these services range from US 24 to 42 cents per minute cost to the user in France: a) 3615 INTERNET (e - mail only) Tarif TTC 0.12 F per connection plus 2.19 F/min. M. Valentin Lacambre ALTERN B 29, rue de Cotte 75012 Paris (1) 42 79 81 38 b) 3615 FRANCENET (new?, looks like full service Internet) Tarif TTC 0.12 F per connection plus 1.27 F/min. Mme Isabelle Haladjian PUBLICATIONS NOUVELLES 49, rue du Faubourg Poissonniere 75009 Paris (1) 48 24 39 55 audiotel: 36 70 75 24 fax : + 33 (1) 47 83 92 17 e - mail: info@FranceNet.fr c) 3616 ALTERN (e - mail only) Tarif TTC 0.12 F per connection plus 1.27 F/min. (Management same as 3615 INTERNET. I see no difference between this service and the much more expensive 3615 INTERNET. I was told that this one was to be discontinued but it seems still to be functioning.) d) 3617 EMAIL (e - mail only plus Usenet and their own bulletin board) Tarif TTC 0.12 F per connection plus 2.19 F/min. M. Jean-Rene Vidaud FRANCE-TEASER 22 grande rue 92310 Sevres (1) 46 26 15 10 e) 3619 USNET (EVERYTHING -- this is Delphi!) Tarif TTC 0.12 F per connection plus 2.19 F/min. M. Jean-Pierre Casara MINITEL SERVICES COMPANY 888 Seventh Avenue 28th Floor 10106 New York (1) 46 94 62 66 1 - 800 - MINITEL 2) The Internet on the Internet An entire new wave of Internet service providers is cropping up in France now, though: providers who do not bother to take advantage of the national Minitel system. This appears to be straight commercial Internet access of the type offered in the US by The WELL, Netcom, AOL, and similar. A good Internet summary appears -- in the language of La Fontaine, malheureusement for non - francophones -- at: http://web.cnam.fr/Network/Internet-access/Internet-access.html These commercial possibilities now include: a) Calvacom / Calvanet (beginning August 1, 1994, complete Internet access, servers at Ve'lizy near Paris and in Lyon) Tarif TTC 100 F per hour (= 1.67 F/min.) Calvacom 175 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau 92138 Issy-les-Moulineaux Tel. : +33 (1) 41 08 11 00 b) FDN / French Data Network (beginning September, 1994, e - mail plus bbs, server at Paris) Tarif TTC 180 F "per month for 10 hours of connect - time" (= 18 F per hour = .30 F/min., which seems too low, and I don't understand the "per month" charge, myself), also, Tarif TTC 50 F "per month for 5 hours of connect - time for students" access (I suppose this is their modem): (1) 44.62.80.01 c) Fnet / EUnet (Paris) (server at Rocquencourt) "Utopia" service (email only): Tarif TTC 237.20 F for 5 hours minimum per month (= .80 F/min. maximum, and much cheaper if you use it a lot) modem (?): (1) 39.63.59.22 Acce`s complet (full service): Tarif TTC 574.40 F for 5 hours mimum per month (= 1.92 F/min. maximum, and much cheaper if you use it a lot) Association Fnet, Branche Franc,aise du Reseau EUNET 52, avenue de la Grande Armee 75017 Paris Tel. : +33 (1) 53 81 60 99 Fax : +33 (1) 45 74 52 79 contact@fnet.fr d) France-Te'le'com et Transpac The French telephone company apparently is offering, as of July of 1994, a full service commercial Internet access of its own -- RAIN (Reseau d'Acces a l'INternet) -- which functions at 9,600 to 19,200 bps. (Remember that their national isdn service, Nume'ris -- 64,000bps -- already is available for 300 F per month, and should apply both to this service and to videotex / Minitel by the end of 1994.) Transpac Tour Montparnasse 33, avenue du Maine B13 75755 Paris Cedex 15 Tel.: +33 (1) 45 38 88 88 Fax : +33 (1) 45 38 71 47 Speicifically for the service RAIN : Antoine Gilles Tel.: +33 (1) 45 38 88 67 Fax : +33 (1) 45 38 88 50 e) INTERNET-WAY (a new private firm, apparently interested in providing connectivity for companies, particularly French PME and PMI) INTERNET-WAY 204, Bd Bineau 92200 NEUILLY sur Seine fax 47 22 03 09 tel 46 41 03 32 f) Oleane (private firm, "member of 'PIPEX'"?) OLEANE 35, Boulevard de la Liberation 94300 Vincennes Tel: +33 (1) 43 28 32 32 Fax: +33 (1) 43 28 46 21 info@oleane.net (no answer) WEB server (which I haven't been able to locate, yet) g) SCT / World - Net (another private firm) SCT 20, avenue Daguerre 77500 Chelles Tel. +33 (1) 60 20 85 14 Fax +33 (1) 64 21 65 35 info@World-net.sct.fr 3) RENATER, and the Internet explosion a` la franc,aise There is, finally, a rapidly - growing plant of academic, government, and corporate Internet use in France, just as there has been in the US and elsewhere. The French, in fact, appear to have pulled into some sort of lead: Internet Hosts as of July, 1994: No.of Change from GNP per Hosts Jan., 1994 Host France 71,899 117% 15.30 Germany 149,193 51% 10.03 Canada 127,516 48% 4.26 UK 155,706 37% 5.93 US 2,044,401 38% 2.79 (This from Mark Lottor's increasingly - invaluable Internet surveys, now available to all easily from his Network Wizards, Menlo Park firm at http://www.nw.com or ftp nw.com . His directories contain figures for all countries, and include these hopefully controversy - provoking calculations of a country's GNP per Internet host.) Where are those 71,899 Internet hosts in France? The Minitel and commercial possibilities mentioned above obviously account for a small number, as most of them just are beginning. For those of you frustrated in the past in your attempts to find "Internet e - mail accounts" in France, be assured that they exist, and have for some time: they're just well - hidden. One of the not so well - hidden possibilities: RENATER -- the French academic and research establishment's entre'e to the Internet, under planning for some time and really only put into operation this year. The goal is to have Internet access available on every higher education campus and research unit in France by the end of 1994, sort of the French JANET or NREN. GIP-RENATER 4, place Jussieu. Batiment A. 7 eme etage 75252 PARIS CEDEX 05 Tel. +33 (1} 44 27 26 12 Fax +33 (1) 44 27 26 13 renater-sphinx@urec.fr CIC (Cellule Information et Coordination): Tel. 16-1 4427 7335 It is said that there is a Web server for RENATER, but I've not been able to find it yet myself. For researchers affiliated with the CNRS, or wishing to reach those who are: UREC 4, place Jussieu. Tour 55-65. 1er etage 75252 PARIS CEDEX 05 Tel. +33 (1) 44 27 42 60 Fax +33 (1) 44 27 42 61 assist@urec.fr The French fascinate, as always. That 117% Internet hosts increase figure in Mark Lottor's growth statistics is all the more interesting for a traditionally - conservative country already committed to its own, different, national information infrastructure, and impeded by significant cultural barriers against the use of American English. International marketers take note. The RENATER program promises to bring the beauties of tcp/ip to the entire French higher education establishment, soon. French CNRS research centers already are mostly Internet - networked, and even government ministries are as well (the French minister of culture -- the one who promoted the recent law banning the use of English -- is toubon@culture.fr ). French corporate networking increases. French publishing and commercial applications, already heavily online on the Minitel, can't be far behind. The US has no monopoly on Internet growth, or on the useful development of the networking which it has invented. FYIFrance e - newsletter ISSN 1071 - 5916 * | FYIFrance is a monthly electronic newsletter, published since | 1992 as a small - scale, personal, experiment, in the creation | of large - scale "information overload", by Jack Kessler. Any | material written by me which appears in FYIFrance may be / \ copied and used by anyone for any good purpose, so long as, ----- a) they give me credit and show my e - mail address, and b) // \\ it isn't going to make them money: if it is going to make --------- them money, they must get my permission in advance, and // \\ share some of the money which they get with me. The use of material written by others requires their permission. FYIFrance is available via gopher to infolib.berkeley.edu 72 , and in various online archives (the easiest to use is the PACS-L archive reached via telnet to a.cni.org , login brsuser ). Suggestions, reactions, comments, criticisms, praise, and poison - pen letters all will be gratefully received at kessler@well.sf.ca.us . .