Free enterprise.

Peter Fiddick

The digital television industry in the UK is largely driven by the private sector. The article compares this with France's Minitel system in the 1970s, which was provided by the government, and kick-started France into the information age.

Free enterprise

Peter Fiddick

WHEN THE French Government, back in the 1970s, decided to give away home computer terminals, heads were scratched and eyebrows raised in the rest of the world. The French going their own way was no surprise - they had gone for their own television transmission system, Secam, when most of the rest of Europe had opted for PAL - but was this move to establish a computerised communication system as a matter of public policy another technical blind alley, or were the French ahead of their time?

The answer, two decades on, seems to be a...

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