British Airways passengers will soon be able to make telephone calls from the sky, says British Telecom International which has completed the first link-up in its Skyphone programme. It claims that the experimental and logistically problematic – call was a first for Europe. Contact was eventually made with British Airways’ marketing chief Jim Harris over a circuit set up between the aircraft and British Telecom International’s satellite earth station at Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall and the call was transmitted via the Inmarsat Atlantic Ocean Region satellite. The link, with kit supplied by Racal Electronics, used a digital coding system running at low 9.6Kbps, to match the restrictions of weight and size on the aircraft antenna, compared with the terrestial 64Kbps. British Telecom has call landing rights with PTTs in Norway and Singapore and hopes to extend the service worldwide.
