World-NET

World-NET (www.worldnet.fr) was the first French Internet service provider (along with FranceNet) for the general public in France. It operated from 1994 to 2002.

Sébastien Socchard, Philippe Langlois, Pierre Séguret and Xavier Niel launched World-NET services on February 15, 1994, after a trip to the United States in 1993, where Internet access was taking off.

At that time, the only existing professional Internet service provider in France was Oléane. There was no service available to individuals. World-NET replaced the computer security company SCT (Security Concept and Technology, the security advising company created by Sébastien on October 9, 1988). Franck Arnal and Franck Landais soon joined Sébastien Socchard to develop the service. Connection fees were initially 80 francs per hour, and then on November 11, 1994 they changed to 230 francs per month. World-NET's websites were worldnet.fr and worldnet.net.

On September 15, 1994, for the first time in France, hundread of thousands of connection kits offering three hours of free Internet access were distributed in the computer magazines InfoPC and Le Monde Informatique (an IDG group publication). Millions of CDs were subsequently distributed in several French magazines.

In October 1994, World-NET had to handle the influx of 1,000 new subscribers every month, which overloaded its equipment. Even so, PC Expert named World-NET the "best Internet service provider" that same month.

In the next two years, the World-NET Access Internet connection kit was distributed in more than 30 books published by Sybex Mc Millan and Micro Application. The kit was first provided on floppy disks, and then on CD-ROMs.

World-NET was a pioneer in the emerging general public Internet access market, with innovations such as the first connection kit and the launch of an unlimited connection package costing 99 francs. It was the first in France to provide "personal pages" and to enable faxing to e-mail accounts. Also, World-Net was the first Internet Service Provider to be included in Microsoft Windows in France, allowing millions of users to access Internet. The company was sold on the 12th of June 2000 to Kaptech.

World-NET is the last remaining independent operator, with more than 22 million francs in sales and 3 million francs in profits. It is sold the 12 of Jun 2000 to the telecommunications company Kaptech (now Neuf Telecom) and ceases operations on May 31, 2002.

World-NET provided an IRC network at irc.worldnet.net.

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