Singapore Teleview

Singapore Teleview was a Singaporean videotext service.^[1][2][3] In the mid 1980s, the Telecom Authority of Singapore entered into a joint venture development with GEC Marconi in the UK to develop a photo-videotext public service. Selected engineers were sent to the UK to work within the Marconi development team stationed at Fleet, Hampshire, England. Singapore was the first country in the world to launch an interactive information service to the public which included photographic images. The service started trials during late 1987 using specifically designed terminals. Controlled trials had been conducted since 1987 as the infrastructure was installed and trialed successfully.^[4] It finally went into full public service in 1991.

Subscribers connected to the Teleview, now-defunct, service by SingTel, via a dial-up connection initially by 1200–2400 baud modems (v.22bis) and then later via 9600-14400 kbit/s modems.^[5] Pages with photographic images were sent to the terminal by full-field teletext transmissions from dedicated data inserters/UHF TV transmitters.

Subscribers initially paid no time based usage fee for this service. However, later charges, on top of telephone line charges were levied.

A later development from Teleview provided an interfaced connection to the Internet, subscribers were given access to the Internet via a text-only terminal; email was accessed by Pine, and webpages were viewed by Lynx. Subsequently, Teleview was rendered obsolete, and SingNet started offering to the Internet via Serial Line Internet Protocol/Point-to-Point Protocol (SLIP/PPP) over modem.