France Plugs Into Future With Video System : Communication: Clinton wants to equip U.S. with a fiber-optic ‘superhighway.’ A visit to Paris would show him how it works.

Jacky Briancon had a heavy problem: 15 tons of paper in Milan, Italy, that he needed to get to Lyon, France, 250 miles away.

Fellow Frenchman Daniel Guillaud had an empty truck, capacity 25 tons, stuck in Milan. “We’d gone down there to pick up a load that wasn’t ready,” said Guillaud. “We were going to have to return empty unless we found something to haul.”

But after a few minutes of electronic matchmaking, Briancon’s paper ended up in Guillaud’s truck. How it got there is one of the latest success stories of France’s amazing telephone-linked video text system, known as the Minitel.

The Clinton Administration recently made a big splash by announcing plans to develop a $17-billion “electronic superhighway”--a national fiber-optic communication network aimed at stimulating American business and aiding consumers.

The Clinton proposal, which would allow universities and major research facilities to share information on the first part of what would be a more ambitious, highly sophisticated American network, is part of legislation under consideration in Congress. There, industry officials have already raised concerns about government versus private leadership.

But thanks to the Minitel, introduced here 12 years ago as part of a heavily subsidized government program to combat American dominance of the computer-driven information field, France is already driving on one kind of a futuristic, electronic superhighway.

As a result, dozens of new technology and service industries already have developed in France, creating 20,000 to 30,000 jobs and pumping millions of dollars into the economy, analysts say.

Millions of French, and an increasing number of other Europeans, now use the Minitel video text system to do their daily banking, shop for groceries, check the weather, plan vacation routes, purchase train and airplane tickets, check their horoscopes and bet on horse races.

Although the envisioned American fiber-optic network would allow such futuristic, high-technology operations as the transfer of full-motion video, Minitel operates similarly to private-sector video text systems available in the United States--but with many more options; between 1989 and 1993, the number of services available on the Minitel has jumped from 8,000 to 20,000.

In many instances, the services are information or publicity presentations for businesses, interest groups and government agencies.

A service offered by the Centre Georges Pompidou arts complex in Paris, for example, details the current exhibition of Henri Matisse paintings and allows a Minitel user to make reservations. Labor unions use Minitel to inform members about strikes and pickets.

But the range is greater than in any existing American system because Minitel has no competition and its user base is much larger.

The single, nationwide system also ensures that someone placing an advertisement--the equivalent of a classified ad in an American newspaper--in one of the many Minitel used-goods markets will reach a broad buying public at minimum cost; this has helped attract French farmers into the system through services that have buy and sell offers for farm machinery.

In addition, many of the more sophisticated data banks in the United States--such as the legal research system Lexis--are also accessible through Minitel.

Finally, because the telephone company provides all the hardware needed to use the Minitel at token cost--those who received Minitels before 1992 got them free--it is much less expensive than it is for an American buying the computer, screen and communications modem necessary to plug into comparable private services.

In its most recent report March 2, France Telecom, the state-owned telephone company that provides the equipment and phone lines, estimated that 30% of France’s population older than 15 uses the Minitel.

The French created the market--and made it broad-based--starting in 1981, delivering 5 million Minitel screens free to phone customers who wanted them. Although France Telecom recently began charging monthly fees for the equipment, more than 6.3 million Minitels are now in use across the country.

Designers also attempted to keep the system simple to use.

The basic Minitel found in most homes is about the size of a toaster, with a small screen. The keyboard is on the inside of a front panel cover that folds down. The miniature keys are unsuitable for typing or composing long messages.

But this, and the folding front panel, mean the unit takes up much less space than a standard personal computer and keyboard. The basic model is plugged into the phone line through the household telephone.

In the Milan-to-Lyon paper shipment, the agent, Briancon, used the small Minitel screen and keyboard provided at the nominal monthly cost of $3.50 to leave a message listing his cargo in Milan with a private electronic message service that caters to shippers and truckers all over Europe. At the same time, Guillaud was checking the service on his screen to see if anyone in Milan needed a truck for a transport job back to France.

In an electronic instant, the match was made.

Both men were happy.

“Super good,” said Briancon.

“That really rescued us,” said Guillaud.

Meanwhile, the highly profitable electronic message service Lamy Teleroute--one of more than 20,000 services offered through Minitel--was a few francs richer.

Since its creation in 1985 by a Paris businessman, Gerard Lamy, the Teleroute system has become the main connecting point in the trucking trade in France and much of Western Europe.

According to Xavier Caron, 31, a manager at the Lamy company, Teleroute last year fielded more than 5 million electronic messages. During peak periods, as many as 2,500 truckers and shippers are “on line” simultaneously. Many truck-freight matches are made in less than two minutes.

“This is what the Minitel is all about,” said Corinne Lejbowicz, 32, general manager of Triel, a Paris-based telecommunication consulting firm that specializes in designing software programs for service companies. “The trucking business has many small companies that before the Minitel had no effective way of talking to each other. They had no other cheap interactive system.”

For Minitel converts, the system offers not just business opportunities but personal convenience too.

Consider, for example, the morning routine of one American devotee. Instead of the standard Minitel offered by France Telecom, he has a more advanced Minitel 12 set that includes a screen and separate keyboard with its own telephone that can be programmed to store up to 51 numbers. This system also allows the user to program the Minitel to automatically access often-used services at the touch of a button.

Instead of the $3.50 monthly charge for the standard Minitel, he pays $17 monthly for the advanced model.

On a typical morning, the customer pushes a button to activate a pre-programmed code that gives him up-to-date headlines from the main French news service, Agence France-Presse. If he is curious about the fate of his favorite American baseball team, he pushes another button to get overnight scores from another service offered by USA Today in cooperation with the French newspaper Liberation.

Satisfied with the sports results, it’s time to check the personal finances. Another button on the Minitel keyboard gives him access to his savings and checking accounts at his local bank. He can check the balance, view an up-to-date record of recent checks and even transfer funds.

If he is traveling, he might want to use another Minitel service to reserve a taxi to the airport. To send a fax to a friend, he calls up another service and types the message on the keyboard. The service ensures that it gets through.

If the cupboards are bare, he might want to order from one of several home-delivery grocers.

Finally, if he has some time left after an hour of button pushing that has taken care of a day’s worth of shopping, he can call his wine buyers’ club and check the latest prices. On this day, the club is offering a special on a 1989 red wine from the Cotes de Bourg region of Bordeaux.

The wine, the Minitel service informs him, has a “ruby robe with intense raspberry reflections. It has a strong ‘nose’ with light aromas of wood, cloves and ripe fruit.”

The customer enters his credit card number into the system and the purchase is made.

Companies offering service on the Minitel are surprised by the results. Michelin, the giant French tire company, for example, created a Minitel electronic version of its famous red and green guidebooks thinking that customers would use it to plan vacations and trips.

Like the guidebooks, the Michelin service names outstanding restaurants and hotels and details local landmarks, as well as giving distances and suggested routes.

What the company did not expect, said Lejbowicz, whose consulting firm designed the Michelin software, was that business people would use the system to document their trips for expense reports. To estimate mileage and costs, they simply order up a printout of the Michelin itinerary.

“No one expected this,” said Lejbowicz, “but now it accounts for about half of the Michelin business on Minitel.”

What makes the Minitel attractive to the service businesses is that the telephone company does most of the work. Besides providing the phone network, it manufactures and provides the simple screens and keyboards, and bills users as part of their regular monthly bill. The billing is done on a time-unit basis that depends on the nature of the service.

It cost Briancon and Guillaud, for example, about $2 each to make their freight connection. More sophisticated services, such as legal research offered on the Minitel, can cost a user more than $100 an hour.

After taking out a hefty share for itself, France Telecom then sends a check to the company providing the service. (France Telecom reports that last year it made about $350 million in profit from Minitel, while paying another $450 million to the service providers.)

As a result, Minitel serving companies typically operate with very small staffs. Lamy works with a staff of only 23. But profits for successful ventures can be attractive. Caron estimated that last year Lamy’s income topped 100 million francs (about $18 million).

The Lamy trucker-shipper matchmaking service is one of the brightest stars of the Minitel system, recently adopted by the Omaha-based U. S. West telephone company and introduced on an experimental basis in Minneapolis.

Not all the French like or use the Minitel, even to consult the electronic phone directory that has replaced the paper phone book in many households.

Most students of the system agree that France Telecom and the French government have done a poor job of explaining the virtues of the Minitel and how it works.

But many of those who learn the system and master its quirks end up becoming Minitel-evangelistic about the device.

And if Clinton and his aides want a peek into the electronic future, they might visit France.