The Office Goes Airborne

By BRUCE VAN VOORST WASHINGTON

First it was the home. Phones, fax machines and PCs made it impossible to leave work at the office. Then the cellular phone made the car, even the golf course, fair game. In 1984 Airfone Inc., a GTE subsidiary, began installing telephones on airplanes. But their old-fashioned analog circuitry, vulnerable to interference, made many calls sound as if they came from Mars. Moreover, plane phones were usually scarce, located either fore or aft or shared, one to a three-seat complex, leaving travelers a reasonable excuse for staying blissfully out of pocket.

Soon even this partial sanctuary will be lost. In-Flight Phone Corp. of Oak Brook, Ill., a newcomer to the field, has begun installing advanced digital telephone systems in each and every seat, complete with video screens and ground data links that will revolutionize service in the sky. Each passenger will have a handset stowed in the armrest and a 4.5-in. by 6-in. screen mounted in the seat ahead, just above the tray table.

As they take their seats, passengers will find their names and welcome aboard already on their screens. News and weather data will scroll past as they settle in, followed by the ineluctable buckle-up-for-safety sermon. Next will come a menu with instructions (in four languages) on how to swipe any credit card through the electronic reader on the handset to pay the costs of a phone call.

What will impress telephone users aloft most, however, is the marked improvement in voice quality. The digital system, which represents and transmits information in strings of 0s and 1s that ensure accuracy, also comes equipped with a built-in computerized noise suppressor. Analog systems, which translate sound waves captured by microphones into electronic representations -- or analogs -- amplify the background noise along with the voice, and wax < and wane depending on atmospheric conditions. Using digital technology, the new phones achieve quality equal to what earthlings get calling across town, even with the faintest signal.

For the first time, thanks to a Federal Communications Commission decision, passengers can receive incoming calls in flight -- routed through a central switchboard and wordlessly announced on the video screen so as not to disturb snoozers. More important, passengers will be able to transmit high-quality computer or telefax data from their seats. Travelers carrying laptop computers need simply plug into the standard AT&T RJ-11 connector in the armrest; laptopless passengers can use the system's built-in keypad to punch out a message, displayed on the video screen, and send it.

The telephone and screen at each seat will transform the airplane armchair into a shopping and entertainment center, granting passengers access to everything from the boss's latest memo to computerized shopping catalogs to Nintendo. The difference is digital. The new FCC-approved system allows for safe and continuous operation even on takeoffs and landings. The high-tech electronic gear on the airplanes connects to a series of 80 ground centers scattered strategically across the U.S. and Canada. Whereas now lengthy calls must often be redialed when the plane leaves one area, continuous phone connections will soon be available. Negotiations are under way to link up with similar systems being designed in Europe and the Far East.

Market analysts predict a huge growth in the service. Currently some 1,700 U.S. commercial airliners carry telephones, a number that will double by 1995. Passenger volume, hence potential customers, will soar from 452 million to nearly 800 million by 1999. Airfone president Robert Calafell predicts a "half a billion-dollar" industry by 1996. In addition to In-Flight -- whose system American, USAir and Northwest have already agreed to test -- four other companies have won fcc approval to offer digital service. One of them is Airfone, which is playing technological catch-up, and will go digital later this year. Its system will be distinguished from In-Flight's by having a small screen in the handset rather than on the seatback. "It's a communications and entertainment profit center for us all," says David Shipley, assistant vice president at USAir, which is installing In-Flight in its new Boeing 757s. "If you want to compete with the majors, you better have digital phones."

Passengers can only benefit from the competition. In-Flight is proposing to undercut Airfone's $8 three-minute tariff at $6. Spokesman Joe Hopkins of United Airlines, an Airfone customer that plans to switch to the advanced digital system, says, "Onboard telephone service has evolved from a unique feature to an everyday necessity. We now hear complaints when it's not available."

There may be some wishful thinking in all this marketing optimism. The rapid introduction of hi-tech doodads in the past has often met with consumer resistance that lasts until people figure out how the technology can actually improve their lives. And there are plenty of traditionalists who will regret this triumph of technology over privacy. For them, the outlook will get steadily worse. Motorola Inc. hopes soon to begin deploying its $3.5 billion Iridium global cellular communications system. The Iridium network -- 77 automobile-size communications satellites in orbits 500 miles high -- should be in place by 1997. By then, with home and hearth violated, automobile, restaurant and airplane no longer consecrated, skiers on Zermatt's slopes and explorers at the South Pole will be susceptible to being overtaken by the message "The office calling."