WHERE the VIDEOTEX ACTION IS Price-The Rest of the Industry Will

Home , NAPLPS, Videotex

vice mix, but now the operators put the spotlight on transactions-airline ticket- ing, stock trading and banking. Some 40 WHERE THE VIDEOTEX ACTION IS banks with home banking services are bet- ting customers will want to do their bank- These are among the videotex services being used by 1 million ing by computer. Americans. Some of the services are still in develcpment. Videotex pioneers also learned about hardware: A certain minority of people Service/System Operator Service Area Subscribe enjoy using personal computers as Count videotex terminals, and many have signed A -T Videotext/Tiffin Advertiser-Tribune Seneca County, 150 up for national videotex services such as Ohio Mrs. Mass CompuServe. But Mr. and Mar- American People Link/American Home national 16,000 ket don't want to deal with computerlike Network gadgets (perhaps their children will, in years to come). In addition, marketers CNt Partners/Citibank, Nynex, RCA national future learned people wouldn't spend $600 or Citiret/Applied Videotex Systems Boston 20,000 $900 on a "dumb" videotex terminal-one with little memory and no computing CompuServe/H & R Block international 280,000 capacity. In its New York debut, Cov- Coridea (Target)/AT&T, Chemical Bank, New York, 45,000- idea's Target service is subsidizing by at Time Inc., Bank of America California least $100 the $49.95 price of each termi- Del 3hi/General Videotex Corp. international NA nal, which is designed to be attached to the user's TV set and telephone jack. Direct Access/Citibank New York 22,000' Dow Jones News-Retrieval/Dow Jones international 250,000' n addition, home videotex services in the U.S. are doing without the Easvlink/Western Union international 130,000 developed by detailed graphics Excel/Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. New York 4,000* AT&T and others and adopted as the North American Presentation Level GEnie/General Electric national 16,000 Protocol Syntax (NAPLPS) standard- Information Services Co. graphics that certainly enlivened the Gro;sroots America/Infomart national 3,200 screen but required more expensive ter- Nytex/New York Telecomputing & Videotex Hudson Valley, 2,000 minals and slowed transmissions. N.Y. Viewtron and Gateway found that customers bridled at waiting as long as five Project Victoria/Pacific Bell Danville, Calif. 200 seconds for complete images to appear on Quantumiink/Quantum Computer Services national 13,000* the screen. Instead, most home services use the plain text standard used for years The source/Source Telecomputing national 70,000* (Reader's Digest) by teletype machines and computers. For graphics in future systems, planners are Spectrum/Chase Manhattan Bank New York 5,000* turning to television -quality still video Stagiest /Ft. Worth Star -Telegram Dallas, 2,268 images, which have real potential for use Ft. Worth in advertising messages. Tranºtext/Integrated Communications Roswell, Ga. 200* The success of an electronic phone direc- Systems tory service in France instills hope for American videotex projects. The French Trintex/IBM, Sears national future government -run phone company has Vicon Information Service/ south central 100 given away, sold or rented 2 million low- Chillicothe Telephone (test) Ohio priced Minitel terminals, with which users can look up phone numbers, conduct on- 'estimate line transactions, or patronize a highly Source: hternational Videotex Teletext News, Arlen Communications Inc. popular computerized singles bar. Six million more terminals will be distributed by 1989, giving French videotex the critical Public access videotex kiosks are also pop- Chillicothe (Ohio) Telephone Co. and the mass to make more services economically ping up in hotel lobbies, tourism centers start-up company Boston-Citinet. Many feasible. American phone companies, and shopping malls. Some kiosks add analysts would say that these smaller although still forbidden to offer informa- detailed video images to the text by incor- organizations may have a better chance at tion services themselves, have explored porating videodisc players. finding the right formula because they will development of similar systems. Many skeptics think videotex needs a be satisfied by small successes. For the Future home customers in this country new name, a new start and, certainly, a immediate future there may not be an are likely to become acquainted with success story to do for the field's identity audience big enough to create the megahit videotex by using it at work or in public what Frigidaire, Pampers or Polaroid did the big companies will need to justify their places. At least 200 companies have for those products when they were new. big investments. But whoever finds the installed in-house videotex systems for While the field watches to see what the right formula-consumer appeal, conven- their employees' transaction and up-to- big corporations manage to do, a handful ient, user-friendly equipment, attractive date information needs. The systems typi- of smaller companies are plugging away at price-the rest of the industry will cally substitute for printed information the videotex business-companies such as undoubtedly be quick to follow. about such topics as insurance benefits. Penn Security Bank in Scranton, Pa., the GARY ARLEN

CHANNELS 87