Dimitrios Lalos is a prolific American wireless visionary, designer and
entrepreneur. He is known for his design efforts in implementing the air-to-ground telecommunications networks of the 80’s and 90’s and recently his efforts in deploying smart technologies at the street level as part of Smart Cities initiatives.
Dimitrios was hired by air-to-ground telecommunications company Airfone Inc. in 1984. Airfone had originally utilized an analog radio system designed and manufactured by E.F. Johnson and a advanced cordless telephone system operating with credit card verification to allow access to the passengers to initiate calls.
In 1985, the FCC ordered Airfone to vacate its experimental frequencies (900/945 MHz) and re-establish its network at the newly dedicated (895/850 MHz) band. Dimitrios devised an elaborate smart radio technique to migrate the radio system seamlessly while operating radio equipment in multiple bands. The technique literally saved the Company from declaring bankruptcy. After the GTE acquisition of Airfone in 1986 he became its Chief Engineer and Technologist. In 1989, Dimitrios joined Jack Goeken (the original founder of Airfone) in the establishment of In-Flight Phone Corporation. Dimitrios designed a technique to seamlessly operate with no service interruption on the newly FCC dedicated frequencies for air-to-ground communications while transitioning services from the old band.
In-Flight Phone (first nationwide digital cellular system ever deployed with commercial traffic).
In 1989, Dimitrios joined John D. "Jack" Goeken (the original founder of Airfone) in the establishment of In-Flight Phone Corporation together with Bill Gordon, Bob Rubens and Moshe Margalit.[1] Dimitrios conceived and designed a system to seamlessly share the FCC dedicated frequencies for air-to-ground communications between 6 providers with the introduction of a novel “first come- first serve” technique that was adopted by the FCC in its entirety (“the sharing plan”) 2 .
In 1990, the Commission allocated four megahertz of spectrum for commercial Air-Ground Radiotelephone Service, authorizing operation at 849-851 MHz (ground stations) and 894-896 MHz (airborne mobile stations). Each band is divided into ten paired channel blocks, which are allotted to specific geographic locations (essentially a national grid). Each band was divided into ten paired channel blocks, which were allotted to specific geographic locations (essentially a national grid). Each channel block contained 29 narrowband (6 kHz) communications channels and 6 narrowband (3.2 kHz) control channels. In-Flight Phone introduced the first nationwide FDMA based digital cellular communications system in 1991 utilizing a narrow bandwidth (6 kHz), digital modulation (8DPSK) and digital voice coding. US Air, Continental and America West became the first airlines to implement and deploy the In-Flight Phone system. In-Flight Phone was the first mobility service provider to offer interactive services and digital text communications utilizing a large screen and a keyboard.
Dimitrios in his efforts to enhance digital services for aviation he also designed and successfully tested the first commercial Ku-band system for aircraft that flew on board of a Lear jet in 1991.
In 1994, Dimitrios and a team of dedicated engineers designed and deployed with Lufthansa the first TDMA Terrestrial Flight Telephone System (TFTS) in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1994, Dimitrios conceived and designed a satellite system for In-Flight to provide Live Television to aircraft. The system was eventually purchased by Harris Corporation and Jet Blue. Jet Blue sold the system to Thales in 2014 for $400 million[2]. MCI purchased in-Flight Phone in 1995. After co-founding In-Flight Phone, Dimitrios tenured with Nextwave Telecom as its VP of National Network Implementation and Planning and Celletra (a smart antenna Company) and led Celletra’s efforts as its Executive VP, Americas. Celletra and Dimitrios’s team were the first to deploy a cellular remote sector antenna via fiber optics for Verizon (DAS predecessor) in California.
In 2008, Dimitrios focused his efforts in other transportation venues and private networks in an effort to provide dedicated wireless communications access to railroad passengers and devised a plan to implement a mobile communications system to offer Wi-Fi access to regional passenger railroads. His efforts were rewarded in 2014, when the company he founded and ran as its President and CEO, inMOTION Wireless, won a twenty (20) year contract with the MBTA in Boston, MA to deploy and operate a four hundred (400) mile 320 sixty five (65) foot wireless tower site advanced private wireless network (600 Mbps to the train) blended with a 400 miles fiber optics backbone [3]. inMOTION was purchased by BAI Communications in 2017[4].
In 2016, Lalos founded Marquee Wireless a smart platform solution in an effort to merge cellular 5G infrastructure needs with smart City applications and he is currently pursuing advanced, modular techniques to support the industry’s efforts to provide esthetically pleasing solutions for cellular communications, smart LED lights and a multiplicity of sensors to the needs of America’s Main Streets.
