Transpac, also written TRANSPAC, was a French
public data network
A public data network (PDN) is a network established and operated by a telecommunications administration, or a recognized private operating agency, for the specific purpose of providing data transmission services for the public.
The first public ...
that operated from the December 1978 to June 2012.
History
The network was opened in December 1978 by the semi-public Transpac society. It offered the
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for Packet switched network, packet-switched data communication in wide area network, wide area networks (WAN). It was originally defined by the CCITT, International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Co ...
interface to its users, the
CCITT
The International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three Sectors (branches) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunicat ...
standard of 1976 in which computer scientists of the
Centre national d'études des télécommunications The Centre national d'études des télécommunications (French language acronym CNET, ''national center for telecommunication studies'' in English) was a French national research centre in telecommunications.
It was created on May 4, 1944 as a Fren ...
(CNET) had played a major role. This network was part of the worldwide X.25 network which, before the Internet, permitted data exchanges around the planet.
Initially created for professional customers, it was later used by millions of French terminals
Minitel
The Minitel, officially known as TELETEL, was an interactive videotex online service accessible through telephone lines. It was the world's first and most successful mass-market online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was developed in Ces ...
s to access consumer applications, forerunners of those of the Internet.
In 1987, Transpac was the world's largest public
packet-switched
In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into short messages in fixed format, i.e. '' packets,'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets consist of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used b ...
network with revenues of nearly $400m. Minitel videotex services accounted for 45% of its data and 20% of its $678m revenue in 1990. By 1991, it was operating in fifteen European countries.
France Télécom closed the
Minitel service, and the Transpac network via which it was available, in June 2012.
See also
*
Internet in France
Internet in France has been available to the general public since 1994, but widespread Internet use did not take off until the mid-2000s. As of 31 December 2014, France had 26 million Internet broadband and high-speed connections on fixed networ ...
References
{{Authority Control
Wide area networks
History of the Internet
Packets (information technology)