By then, however, Germany was experiencing the first wave of the Internet revolution, stimulated by the growth of online services such as AOL and Compuserve and by the huge success of the new World Wide Web protocol which provided a graphical interface for the Internet. The breakup of Bundespost, which resulted in the creation of Deutsche Telekom, also set the stage for the creation of a dedicated online services subsidiary, called Online Pro Dienste GmbH & Co. By 1994, the BTX service counted more than half a million subscribers. That year, the BTX was linked into similar systems in neighboring countries, giving German subscribers access to services in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The need for speed drove the Bundespost to upgrade its entire telephone network to support the new higher-speed ISDN protocol in 1993. In 1991, also, a new "Telebrief" service debuted on the BTX network, providing the ability to send letters across the network. The launch was a success, and by the end of 1987 the BTX network counted more than 100,000 subscribers.Īt the beginning of the 1990s, the BTX services was ported for use within the new Windows 3.0 operations, as personal computer use began to take off in earnest. Patterned after the French Minitel terminal launched some years earlier, the new Multitel combined a screen, keyboard, and telephone modem, making it easier for consumers to connect to and navigate the BTX network. The launch of a terminal device in 1987 helped encourage consumers to join the BTX network. Subscriber response was relative subdued -by 1986, only 50,000 subscribers, in a country of more than 50 million, had signed up for the BTX service. At last, in September 1983, the Bundespost officially launched the BTX service nationwide. Two years later, as the full-scale rollout of the BTX network came closer, businesses were granted access to the network in order to set up their own services. In 1981, the Bundespost debuted a new service -the ability to send messages via the BTX system, foreshadowing the later email protocol. Access remained restricted, however, as testing of the system continued. Field testing began in the summer of 1980, and by the end of that year, Bildschirmtext, or BTX, had been officially launched with content and services available from such sources as Quelle, Neckermann, Verbraucherbank, and Otto. In 1976, Fedida brought the Viewdata system to the Bundespost, which then controlled Germany's postal and telephone monopolies, and successfully transmitted data from England to Germany.īy the end of that year, a German name for the system, Bildschirmtext, had been chosen and by 1977 Bundepost presented its own system. Nonetheless, the system garnered a great deal of interest, notably among other European countries. Expensive to acquire and to operate, the system, later renamed as Viewdata and then Videotext, never became widely popular, attracting no more than 100,000 customers before the advent of the Internet. The Prestel system, as it was then called, debuted in 1972. The age of online communication began in the late 1960s when Sam Fedida, an engineer at the British Post (which later became British Telecom) connected his television to a computer mainframe using a decoder to transmit via ordinary telephone lines. The company is listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange. T-Online is also investing in new wireless and mobile Internet access technologies. Many of T-Online's content ventures are developed in partnership with other groups, such as France's Lagardere, which holds a 5 percent stake of the company, and publishing group Axel Verlag. As such, the company has been developing its paid content services, such as fee-based newsletters, a music download service, online gaming sites, and other e-commerce sites such as online banking services and a stake in the Booxtra online shop. Yet the company is reducing its reliance on subscriber charges, stepping up its efforts to generate revenues from advertising and e-commerce fees and services. Fully 75 percent of T-Online's revenues, which topped EUR 1.8 billion ($1.9 billion) in 2002, come from Internet access fees. The bulk of the company's operations remain, however, in its German home base, where the former Deutsche Telecom spinoff is the leading ISP with more than 9.5 million customers. In addition to its T-Online brand, the company operates as Club Internet in France and Ya.com in Spain and Portugal. T-Online International AG is one of Europe's largest Internet-service providers, with some 12.5 million subscribers -including some three million ADSL customers -in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, and Switzerland. NAIC: 514191 On-Line Information Services
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