This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. A Networked World's Final Frontier: The Airplane November 12, 2002 By SUSAN STELLIN On a recent flight from New York to Oakland, Calif., Madeline Duva worked her BlackBerry pager with the intensity of a pinball player, right up until the second of four announcements from the flight crew reminding passengers that all electronic devices must be turned off. Ms. Duva, a vice president with a San Francisco financial-data company, Sector Data, complied with the request, but said the communications blackout during the six-hour flight left her worrying about a last-minute directive to a colleague. "Now I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, `I hope that order went in,' " she said. Despite her anxiety over the status of the deal - and whether a friend had gotten World Series tickets - she resisted the urge to download e-mail messages to her BlackBerry for the duration of the flight. "You want to play by the rules, because you don't know if it could cause a problem," she said. Like many gadget-toting business travelers, Ms. Duva regularly inhabits what might be described as the eye of the information hurricane: in an era of information overload, air travel remains a unique exception to an increasingly networked world. Not only can passengers not get information about whether a deal went through or who is ahead in the bottom of the seventh inning, they cannot seem to get a satisfying explanation for why they cannot use their cellphones, BlackBerries or a host of other electronic devices in the air. In the meantime, there is a continuing face-off between passengers who surreptitiously - and sometimes, blatantly - use gadgets to send text messages or even make voice calls, and flight crews who must keep an eye out for thumbs tapping away under a tray table (and then determine whether a particular device can safely be used for other tasks with its phone feature shut off). Indeed, two flight attendants on the same Oakland-bound flight said that on every flight a handful of passengers have to be asked to turn off electronic devices, and that travelers were not always willing to oblige. "At least we have passengers who tell us people are trying to do it behind our backs," said one flight attendant, who insisted that her name not be used, adding that part of the problem is that travelers do not believe that these devices cause interference with the aircraft's communications system. Whether electronic gadgets that emit radio signals do in fact compromise the safety of the aircraft is a matter of some debate, one complicated by the public perception that many people have illicitly used a cellphone or pager in an aircraft from time to time, and so far, no plane has crashed because someone's phone rang. "Most of the time, nothing ever goes wrong," said Joe Burns, an Airbus captain who serves as director of flight standards and technology for United Airlines. "When passengers see that, it builds up the opinion in their mind that these things are safe. But we do have some documented evidence that these things can cause problems on specific aircraft." Part of Captain Burns's job is to evaluate which technology can safely be used on planes, both in the cabin and in the cockpit. In the past, he said, manufacturers had to demonstrate that their technology was safe to use in the air; now the burden of proof has in some sense shifted to the airline industry to determine which emerging technologies cause interference. "Our real concern moving forward is the proliferation of these PDA's with wireless communication devices built in," he said. "We have to keep on the leading edge to determine which devices are actually transmitting." Another complicating factor is confusion over who is responsible for making the rules. The ban on cellphone use in aircraft was issued by the Federal Communications Commission, not out of concern for passengers' safety, but because using cellphones in the air can cause problems with wireless networks on the ground. Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the F.A.A. itself did not ban the use of specific portable electronic devices, but prohibited the airlines from allowing passengers to use them unless the carriers can prove the devices do not interfere with communications systems. Although Mr. Takemoto said the agency was looking closely at the multitude of wireless devices that are becoming popular, the burden has fallen on the airlines to police the issue. Of course, it has not helped matters that plans to offer air travelers Internet access or messaging capabilities, tantalizingly within reach a year and a half ago, have been suspended as the airlines focus on other priorities, like new security measures and profitability. Two of the leading initiatives to bring enhanced communication services to aircraft are testing their technologies with international carriers and private jets, but no one is willing to guess when America's airlines will have the money for this type of investment. Connexion by Boeing, a division of Boeing that delivers a broadband Internet connection to aircraft, will start a trial with Lufthansa in January on a 747 flying from Frankfurt to Dulles International Airport near Washington. A month later, British Airways will test the technology on a similar aircraft flying between Heathrow in London and Kennedy in New York. The company also announced an agreement with Japan Airlines and currently has government and corporate clients in the United States. Using the Connexion by Boeing service, passengers can plug in their laptops, open a Web browser and enter a credit card number to pay a fee of $25 to $35 per flight segment for unlimited Internet access - but not anytime soon between, say, New York and Los Angeles. Stan Deal, Connexion by Boeing's director of sales, said although American carriers continued to express interest in the technology, "The main issue for the U.S. is some level of economic stability and recovery." He added, "There are too many unknowns out there to predict exactly when yet." That perspective is echoed by John Wade, executive vice president for strategic planning at Tenzing, a competing service that has developed technology to offer Internet access in aircraft as well as a separate messaging service that uses seat-back entertainment systems. The messaging service, installed on one Virgin Atlantic aircraft, charges passengers $2.50 to send a text message to a phone number or e-mail address (passengers cannot receive replies yet). Tenzing's Internet service, available on 30 Cathay Pacific aircraft, charges passengers $9.95 to give them access to their e-mail accounts for viewing the sender and header of unread mail (reading the entire e-mail costs an additional $1 for each message). Mr. Wade expects more airlines will opt for some type of messaging service over high-speed Internet access, but declined to predict a time frame for American carriers. "I think it would be unrealistic to give a date because no airline has committed to it," he said. "But we are seeing renewed interest." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/business/12WIRE.html?ex=1038113538&ei=1&en=933f66ffa08a51ea HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company