A virtual twin of Helsinki is under construction on the Internet. JAMES GEARY takes the grand tour

By JAMES GEARY

hen construction is finally complete in the year 2000, Finland's newest city will rival Helsinki in terms of the social, cultural and commercial possibilities it offers its residents. In fact, this new metropolis will be Helsinki in every respect, except for the fact that it will exist only on the Internet. A consortium led by the Helsinki Telephone Corporation, Finland's largest privately owned telephone firm, is meticulously recreating the Finnish capital in cyberspace as part of the Helsinki Arena 2000 project, an attempt to put all the municipality's public services online. Once the virtual version of Helsinki is up and running, its digital denizens will be able to view public areas in real time, access online services, make purchases and place video phone calls through their personal computers. The goal is to make it possible to do anything in the cybercity that can be done in the real city--from window shopping along the Esplanade to a tram ride through Senate Square.

According to Risto Linturi, technology director for the Helsinki Telephone Corporation and architect of the virtual Helsinki concept, the world's first actual city on the Web will be a cross between "an interactive map and a living telephone book. It will be a meeting point between physical and virtual space." Want to call a friend but can't remember the telephone number? Just take a virtual stroll to your friend's front door, ring the bell and let your home computer place a call through your telephone to the number at that address. Want to attend a lecture at Helsinki University, but can't find a babysitter? Go to the university on a virtual tram--which mirrors in real time the schedule and route of the actual tram thanks to onboard links with global positioning system (G.P.S.) satellites--and sit in on the session through your computer, which receives sound and video transmissions from the lecture hall via an ISDN line. You can even ask questions by e-mail.

Virtual Helsinki will not be some ethereal realm completely detached from real time and place. It will be an exact replica of the city itself, built bit by bit instead of brick by brick. Using conventional architectural software, the Helsinki firm Arcus is creating a three-dimensional model based on the town's existing structures and about 5,000 aerial photographs. With typical Finnish precision, Helsinki's digital twin will be accurate to within 20 or 30 cm. Enter the virtual version of the fifth-floor conference room in the offices of the Helsinki Telephone Corporation, for example, and the actual space is recreated in such detail that you can admire the portraits of former company directors lining the walls and even read the names on the plaque honoring employees who died during World War II.

But why remake Helsinki in such detail on the Internet when the real thing is right outside your door? "For the same reason that people use telephones," Linturi retorts. "Because it's easier and it saves time." And it just might mean lucrative new markets for companies in the fixed-line telephony business. By investing in the digital city project, the Helsinki Telephone Corporation, which handles over 90% of the telephone traffic in the metropolitan area, is making a virtue of necessity. As cell phones continue to grow in popularity--and given the fact that the vast majority of the traffic it manages is local anyway--the company needs new ways to enhance and extend its service. What better way than to put all of Helsinki into every home? "As mobile telephony takes over the traditional telephone business," Linturi explains, "the future of fixed-line telephony will lie in value-added services such as Helsinki Arena 2000."

All you need to wander the streets of virtual Helsinki is an ISDN connection, a multimedia computer and a standard Internet browser. (If you want to be seen by your fellow netizens, you need a video camera too.) Linturi predicts that most homes in the Helsinki area will have this equipment by the turn of the century. Indeed, the Finns' well-known technophilia--the country has the highest penetration of cell phones in the world, and some 800,000 Finns log onto the Internet at least once a week--should stand them in good stead when it comes to populating the digital city with real people.

But while the members of the Helsinki Arena 2000 consortium are happy to provide the urban planning, it's up to citizens themselves to do their own interior decorating. For example, a store owner on the Esplanade, one of Helsinki's main shopping streets, could link his or her virtual shop window to a Website. Enticed by the window displays, shoppers could click on the window to gain access to the store itself. Once inside, they could just browse or indulge themselves with an online buying spree. Alternatively, the shop window could be left blank, the digital equivalent of closed shutters. Individuals will be able to create their own windows onto this wired world as well. A ring on the neighbor's bell could admit you to their home page on the World Wide Web or a live video conferencing hook-up. Or they could just as easily slam the virtual door in your face.

Linturi's own home, currently under construction on the shores of the Baltic Sea on the outskirts of Helsinki, is designed to showcase the potential of this new technology. The Linturi residence is the first house in Finland to be built with Local Operating Network (L.O.N.) automation, an advanced computer system that can operate everything from the thermostat to the coffee maker. Using this system, Linturi is able remotely to control all the building's vital functions--turning on and off the lights, locking and unlocking the doors--via the Internet or his mobile phone. He even plans to install a video camera in his fridge so that he can see which groceries he needs while he's on the road. A digital knock on his front door is likely to find him at the kitchen table, where video conferencing facilities have been installed for virtual visits.

Although anyone may view Helsinki online (www. helsinkiarena2000.fi), only residents of the real city can make full use of it. The Helsinki Telephone Corporation created the service as a high-speed intranet, a small slice of the Internet available to selected groups, accessible only to subscribers to its local service. This goes against the grain of received wisdom, which states that the Internet is best used as a global means of communication. But it fits in perfectly with Linturi's vision of how new digital technologies can be integrated into daily life. "The Internet is not a medium," he says. "It's a place. And physical communities will be increasingly important in the networks of tomorrow. They create cohesion, a feeling of belonging to the same world, the same community." Even in cyberspace, it seems, there's no place like home.