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try that again. At first it was given at no cost to people who accepted to stop receiving the paper phonebook, then you could rent or buy depending on the speci

try that again. At first it was given at no cost to people who accepted to stop receiving the paper phonebook, then you could rent or buy depending on the specific model. During the golden age about 20% homes were equipped at peak it reached 25% (far from everybody had one). There were no services available for free, at first there were two kinds: the service provider pays the operator or the user pays the operator (about 3€ an hour). no money for the service provider. Then came the kiosk offer which started the golden age: the user now pays 9€ an hour with 6€ for the service and 3 for the operator.

llsf 9y ago
9 million terminals for a total population of 55 million, it is pretty good coverage. I used to live in Cesson-Sévigné, where it was born. One day, my dad came back home early 80's with one for free. After few years everybody I know had one per household, except for my grandparents. Pretty much every household who wanted one could get one. Later they built more fancy terminals (faster modem, combined with phone, better screen/graphics, etc.) and rented them. The free one was still a good deal. The White Pages where totally free. And if I recall the Yellow Pages had a the first minute or so free. I remember navigating the pages as fast as possible to not pay the fee. As mentioned before some school results and even applications were made using the terminal, for residual fee on the phone bill. My mom was buying online (3Suisses, Redoute and CAMIF) through the terminal from early 80's until early 2000. She had a hard time to move to internet website when it comes to buy online. She heard so much of CC fraud online that she felt safer using the Minitel.