French Revolution: The French Telephone Card Story - Origins

veryone knows that Japan is the world's largest user of phonecards - except France Telecom who claim they dominate the market. But that is the chipcard market - the only one they consider important. As the result of a government five-year plan which emphasised communication (and, among other things, led to the creation of the high-speed rail network), France developed one of the world's most sophisticated telecommunications systems, of which cardphones were an important part. That was in the seventies. Until then, the telephone system had been poorly developed: few public 100 unites longue duree phones existed and those that Telecommunications did were of a simple

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general, be used only for local calls (although occasionally a telephone would get linked by accident to the international network: such phones could easily be identified by the long queues of ex-patriots waiting to ring the USA for the price of a local call! Once the authorities discovered these phones, they were quickly 'vandalised'). In those days, the main place for making calls was the cafe.

In this short series of articles RALPH ADAMS introduces British readers to the French telephone card scene. This month covering the events that led up to arrival of the famous 'chip' card The Pre-history Phonecards

Now all this has changed. France is the largest \ consumer of chip'\

type phonecards: in \ 1994 she used a third of that year's J world production;

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increasing fast. In 1995 the French still :;-~ managed to use 112 million Ollt of an estimated world production of 420 million (which, incidentally, equals Japanese domestic phonecard sales). Current policy is to encourage everyone to adopt the French system as the international standard in an industry which France dominates: during the first half of 1995, for example, a further 25 countries joined the French 'club'. Whether this domination will continue is, however, an open question. The original patents and licenses are beginning to expire and new manufacturers and groupings are emerging. One threat is the Eurochip card to which several countries are already committed. This would not be the first time that France found herself in a minority - in 1993 the position of ":S"'~

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the chip on the card had to be changed to conform with the international standard. Use of phonecards is widespread in France and public telephones have sprung up everywhere: ten years ago only 18,500 cardphones existed, whereas the country now has about 210,000 public phones of which 160,000 accept phonecards (there are a further 23,000 private cardphones). Rather than phone from home, many people prefer to make outgoing calls from public telephones as they can better control costs. As a result, it can still be hard to find a vacant telephone and even harder to find one that takes coins. France Telecom claims that a great part of the success of phonecards is due to their high level of take-up (90% of calls from public phones are made with them). French users seem less concerned than their British counterparts about making what, in effect, are interest-free loans and gifts to a telephone operator.

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Although the first proper telephone cards appeared in 1978 (at a test site in the Hotel Frantel Windsor, Paris), a form of embossed credit card was tried in several French cities in the early seventies. However, the prehistory of French phonecards goes back to 1880 when the earliest pre-payment system for public telephones was created. This involved the use of Telephone Stamps which could be purchased in telephone bureaux and generally gave five minutes of local-call time or a three minute trunk call. Once the connection had been made, a clerk cancelled the units with a rubber stamp. This system lasted until about 1910. During the same period, 'season tickets' giving privileged access to public telephones also existed. In 1937, tokens (or 'jetons'), the size of a small ridged silver coin, were brought in. They could be used instead of coins in cafes and telephone bureaux and each had the validity of a unit (the value of an untimed local call). Jetons remained in general use until the late 1970s when the

PTI, as it then was, decided to experiment with a new way of paying for phonecalls: the telephone card.

The Experimental Series The early French cards were produced by Landis & Gyr, who have made most 8T cards. Following the experiment at the Hotel Windsor, magnetic cards were tried in 1980. One set appeared in three

values and the cards had a detachable corner, rather like the current Italian Urmet Patent cards. In a separate experiment, 1980 also saw the introduction, in three areas of Paris, of laser-read holographic cards. The cards were sold in a transparent container with a plastic insert showing the location of the telephones in which the cards could be used and listing points of sale. Further public trials took place in other parts of the country (notably, for the magnetic cards, in the Three Valleys ski area which is noted for its highvolume of public telephone usage) and several holographic sets appeared during the following six years. These included the first promotional card: issued for the 21st European Telecommunications Conference in 1982. In all, one million holographic cards were issued before the telephones were removed and a full refund given to those willing to go to the effort of returning their cards. Neither the magnetic nor the holographic systems were a great success and the PTI looked for another approach. In 1984, thermomagnetic tickets were evaluated. These were narrow pre-payment cards inserted into the

telephone which then used a highfrequency emission to burn off the units (a similar system is currently used in Colombia). Six types of TIMs are known, but only three telephones were designed to accept them (a public phone at a research establishment in Paris, another in the USA - for which TIMs were printed with English wording - while a third was at the manufacturers' in Crouzet). Unfortunately, the tickets proved too fragile for general use and the idea was dropped in favour of the chip card. ~

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~ The Chip Arrives Chip cards also appeared in 1984 when they had their first public tests, to compare them with the magnetic and holographic cards, in Blois and Grenoble. The cards used in these experiments are now much sought after. The first mass-volume chip cards were, in fact, initially produced in much smaller numbers than is generally assumed (for example, in 1985 total sales for all the systems then in use was only two million). These were the famous 'pyjamas' (so called because of their stripes) and production only reached sizeable figures in 1987, the year in which they were superseded. The earliest 'pyjamas' came in plastic containers with the same design as the card. However, in June 1985 the containers were replaced by an early

version of the present sealing process (the 'blister') and the lower value card, of 40 units, was replaced by the 50 unit one. The backs of some pyjamas were used as a means of publicising certain towns - notably Blois and Orleans. Subsequently, commercial advertising was tried, including a very early Coke ad. Functionally, chip cards were an immediate success. So much so that soon a body of collectors had developed and a club with weekly meetings was created in Paris. By 1990, the hobby could be said to have truly been accepted in France when, in that year, the 'immortals' of the French Academy allowed the word 'telecarte' to be added to the dictionary!

The First Picture Cards Once phonecards looked like catching on, France Telecom needed a means of covering their relatively high production costs. Advertising was suggested. In order to see what

decorated cards would look like, four well-known contemporary artists (Akhras, Le Cloarec, Soler and Toffe) were each asked to produce two original designs to illustrate signed and numbered phonecards. These were eventually produced in small quantities to test the idea and have since become known amongst collectors as the 'pictorial precursors'. They are now also the most sought-after cards catalogued at up to £5000 each.

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