European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 12, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Cations \ stereo radio programs. They can plug into visual data Banks Able to provide v them with huge amounts of information ranging irom 1 train times to the latest Stock Market prices. J Biarritz a several pay videophones in kiosks on \ the Street and Banque National de Paris has installed an unmanned videophone Branch in the Center of town where clients can speak to a Bank officer in the main f Branch and Check their accounts. At the local Hospital doctors can Call up patients j medical records and a rays on a videophone during i consultations and sick children can follow classes in the " local school on their Home videophones. Children in the isolation wards at the Trousseau paediatric Hospital in Paris also use these instruments to 4 follow lessons in the Hospital classroom watch to and. Chat to friends. The videophone keeps their education going and j humanizes the Hospital explained Anne Christina 3 , the assistant administrator. Ujj Francois Gerin a senior French vide communications Engineer stresses the evolving nature of visual telecommunications. Success depends on answering demands which Are not yet fully defined he said arguing that France s j optical fiber network allows a wide Range of service eventually Biarritz and the nearby towns of Angle and Bayonne Are to be transformed into urba 2000 a 1 huge permanent exhibition of advanced Urban living including the latest techniques in telecommunications. V transportation and Energy conservation. So far the French government has spent the. Equivalent of about $10 million turning Biarritz into a ,. Showcase for French telecommunications picking up the Cost of installing the videophones and Only charging homeowners for Calls. At present a single videophone costs the equivalent of about $3,000 while the total cos of bringing a House into the system is some $7,000. Videophone users in the Biarritz Experiment pay the same rental and user charges As for an Ordinary Telephone which French officials admit is Well below the economic Cost of the service provided. Watching a 1 i hour film on videocassette costs about 8 francs in videophone charges or just a Little More than $1, plus a rental charge of 28 francs a film by the privately owned televise club. French movie houses in contrast charge $3 to $6 a seat. But As the government s cabling plan gathers Speed substantial economies of scale Are expected. Last Yea France s outgoing socialist minister of posts an telecommunications Louis mex Andreau predicted that the Cost of hooking up an individual House would fall to about $800 in a town of 300,000 houses. It would Only be half that sum when the rate of cabling reaches 1 million Homes a year. T v Valery Giscard d Estwing while he was president of 3 France chose Biarritz in 1979 As the site for this it ambitious Experiment in what the French Call vist Phonie and optical fiber cabling. The City is Small. Ife with Only 30,000 permanent inhabitants although three h times As Many in summer. It is easily accessible and of l has an International conference Center. Its location also fitted in Well with the government s plans to Speed ". Economic development in southwestern France. Some of the biggest names in French telecommunications Are associated with the project. Thomson the state owned group now facing privatization by the new French government developed " the videophones. The bulk of the optic fiber cabling a j was done by let a subsidiary of Compagnie general d electricity another state owned company due to be