Internet in France

History of the Internet General public in France

Accessible initially to a reduced number of users in a small number of companies and Universities, the use of the Internet by the general public started only starting from 1994.

In 1992, almost simultaneously, French Dated Network and Altern (via the service Minitel 3616 ALTERN) made it possible the general public to be connected to the network Internet. At the time the World Wide Web did not exist yet and the services offered were the Email, the news by the network Usenet, the access to many files of software and documentation, and the access to the machines of the network Internet.

There was then FranceNet which opened its doors on June 8th, 1994. FranceNet was founded by Rafi Haladjian, well later Co-inventor of Nabaztag the communicating rabbit. FranceNet was followed closely by WorldNet, always in June 1994. WorldNet was him created by Xavier Niel, well later founder of Free. Followed in the order Calvacom, Internet Way and Imaginet.

Many subscribers with Internet

Whereas the France was lagging behind still a few years ago (partly because of the Minitel), it occupies today the second place of the European classification as for the number of hearths connected to Internet.

There were in August 2005 13.241.000 Net surfers in France (against 8.908.000 in August 2004), including 7.935.900 subscriptions “High banc”. Among various technologies of broadband connection, it is the ADSL which meets the most success and which knows more the strong growth: 7.410.000 subscribers high banc are connected by the ADSL, 520.000 by the cable and the 5900 remainders are it by Fiberoptic, BLR, or other.

At the end of 2006, one counts approximately 11.000.000 of subscribers with the ADSL In April 2007, according to Médiamétrie, more half of the French are Net surfers.

Suppliers of access to Internet

See also: List of the suppliers of access to Internet for private individuals

Orange (ex-wanadoo) is the main thing Fournisseur of access to Internet (FAI) in France, with 46% of market shares (6,4 million subscribers including 3,7 million customers high-flow), followed by the group Neuf Cegetel which, thanks to the recent repurchase of Club Internet, posts from now on more than 3.000.000 of subscribers ADSL. Then Free with its 2.500.000 customers ADSL comes including 75% in total grouping.

Content providers

(to be written)

Among principal the Content providers, one can quote:

August 1st

Navigators Web

The navigator more used is Internet Explorer since Microsoft installed it out of standard in Windows 98, thus torpedoing the other navigator of the time, Netscape Navigator.

However, more and more of Net surfers choose a Alternative navigator such as Mozilla Firefox, a Free software partially based on the source code of Navigator 5.0, made public by the company Netscape.

The market shares of the navigators are, in August 2005: Internet Explorer: 85,8% Mozilla Firefox : 13,3% Opera: 0,4% Netscape: 0,4% Others: 0,1%

The Festival of the Internet

Every year the Fête is held of the Internet.

Domain names

It is the AFNIC which is in load of domain names in .fr (France) and .re (island of the Meeting) Other domain names exist, such as .gf, for Guyana, or .eu for the EU.

See too

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