Ken Jongsma <jongsma@esseye.si.com> (06/28/91)
From the June 24th issue of {Communications Week}:
Pacific Bell and 101 OnLine, a new videotex provider, said last week
that they will work together to bring videotex services to California.
PacBell, San Francisco, will provide third-party billing so that 101
OnLine charges appear on monthly PacBell bills. 101 OnLine offers
videotex services similar to those of France Telecom's Minitel system.
101 OnLine will charge users $9.95 a month for unlimited use of the
graphics and text services. The 101 OnLine system uses the same
terminals used for Minitel. Pac Bell customers using the service will
find a separate page in their monthly bills with the 101 OnLine
charges.
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My first reaction to this was, "Oh no, another Knight-Ridder debacle."
On one hand, I'd like to encourage this kind of thing. Let the RBOCs
provide billing, but stay out of content. For some reason though, the
people that keep trying these things come up with the most unlikely
concepts. Making people by a totally incompatable Minitel terminal and
then expecting them to pay $9.95 a month for Prodidy style graphics
doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Most likely scenario: 101 OnLine
lasts 12 months, and Pac Bell gets another example to show why it
should be given content privileges. Sigh.
Ken Jongsma ken@wybbs.mi.org
Smiths Industries jongsma@esseye.si.com
Grand Rapids, Michigan 73115.1041@compuserve.com